Embers and
by Starcrossd.sky
Summary: [AU, roleswap] "The original is doomed, so make a replica, and perhaps something of value can be saved." In a world half a step from canon, Van takes the replica from Choral Castle to train as his tool, and leaves the original to his inevitable fate. Things don't go exactly as planned.
1. Chapter 1

**Part 1: Embers and Ashes**

* * *

_ND2000. In Kimlasca shall be born one who inherits the power of Lorelei._

Sitting up in the tree, the boy turned another page in his book, the sounds of the household below all but ignored. He was lost deeply in the fonic diagram spread across the pages - a healing arte, one he rarely got to practice and had by no means mastered. Only in secret could he even look at it; when he was tested for ability with the Seventh Fonon, the results had indicated that a misuse of it could have volatile, destructive effects in his hands.

_He will be a boy of royal blood with hair of red._

Luckily, there was another Seventh Fonist in the family - and Natalia had little inclination to deny her intended anything, especially when he put it in terms of wanting to help the kingdom as much as he could. And he _did_ want to help Kimlasca, as much as he could, but that wasn't the reasoning behind wanting to learn healing artes, and any other kind of arte he got a chance to. He didn't want to be caught helpless again.

_He shall be called the Light of the Sacred Flame, and he will lead Kimlasca-Lanvaldear to new prosperity._

"Luke!"

One member of the staff could always be relied upon to find him no matter where he hid, however. Luke carefully folded the diagram back into the book it was hidden in before leaning over the edge of the branch to look at the servant who had been his best friend for years.

"Guy? What is it?"

On the ground below, the blond had his hands on his hips, a gesture indicating faint disapproval. Guy couldn't actually criticize him - it would be out of place for a servant - but after ten years, Luke was more than capable of interpreting Guy's mood most of the time. The lightly teasing expression Guy was wearing indicated that it wasn't serious, at least; most likely, he was just annoyed at Luke making himself hard to find.

"You keep disappearing like that, someone's going to think you got kidnapped again," Guy teased, shaking his head slightly in exasperation. Luke frowned down at him, eyebrows furrowed.

"I'd think I'm a little old for them to be worried about that by now, even if I'm not of age."

"Yeah, yeah. His Grace was asking after you; Dorian General Grants is going to be arriving soon, and you're to wait for a summons to the drawing room when he gets here."

Luke folded the book under one arm before jumping down from the tree. No reason to force Guy to crane his neck looking up at him. "That's odd. Today isn't a training day."

Guy shrugged, gesturing widely with his hands. "Don't look at me. I'm just coming to find you as ordered."

"Consider me found," Luke said. He started to turn to walk in towards the manor, but as he did, the world spun, just a bit, and his head felt as though someone struck it with one of the iron beams holding up the city.

_Luke..._ He was only dimly aware of Guy's voice echoing the one reverberating in his skull, as he fell to his knees and then onto his side, the book falling from his grasp. _Fragment of my soul... Head my voice..._

A dim golden light, like Seventh Fonons inside of the eyelids he had squeezed shut, and then blackness.

* * *

_ND2002. The One Who Would Seize Glory shall destroy the island upon which he was born, a land by the name of Hod. War shall thereafter persist between Kimlasca and Malkuth for a full cycle of seasons._

Her heels clacked loudly on the floor of the city as she stepped down the stairs into the glowing glyph. The road was open, and she had avoided going through it for long enough. Here in the depths of the city, there was no sign of the poisonous fog that hung outside and formed the sky that she had known for most of her life, but it still felt choking, stifling.

She had a responsibility, and she couldn't fulfill it here. Her task, her brother was beyond, in the realm where the clouds in the sky were only water, where the sun shone upon the earth.

"So, the time has come." She gripped her weapon, lifted it as she began to channel the fonons that would activate the glyph. "Prepare..."

A flash of light, and she was gone.

* * *

When Luke came around, he was laid out on his bed, flat on his back. Someone had moved him while he was passed out.

It wasn't incredibly uncommon for him to black during one of the headaches, which had started after the kidnapping. They were usually rare, but had been growing more frequent lately, which was why his former restrictions of "don't leave the city" had been reduced to "don't leave the royal quarter." Even then, it was rare that he was allowed outside of the manor without an escort, even if that escort was just Guy.

Speaking of whom...

Luke sat up and glanced around, rubbing at his temple even though there was no remnants of pain from the headache. Guy was still in the room, leaning up against the sill of the window he usually used to enter and exit Luke's room without being seen.

"Feeling better?" he asked, shifting his weight back onto his feet.

"A bit," Luke muttered, as he slid his way to the edge of the bed and started to climb off.

"Typical, you were only out long enough to make me haul you here." Guy shook his head fondly. "I told the maids to keep out, but by now everyone knows you blacked out, I'm sure."

"Thanks." He knew that Guy standing up to the maids in any way was a gigantic effort - Guy's fear of women usually made him an easy target for teasing and harassment. "I suppose everyone is waiting for me already in the drawing room, huh."

"Yeah. His Grace probably isn't too happy." Guy crawled up onto the sill, preparing to leave the room by, probably, the same way he came in. "I've got to get back to work, so I'll see you later, okay?"

Luke hummed his agreement as he pulled on a slightly more formal jacket. "Don't get caught leaving." The last time that had happened, he knew Guy had gotten in a lot of trouble - technically, as servant and heir to the house, it was improper for them to have the kind of friendship they did. But Guy had been one of the only people anyone near Luke's age when he was growing up; few of the household servants had children, then or now.

"Don't worry about me!" Guy said with a laugh. He dropped out of sight below the window, but his voice came up one more time. "Everyone's busy with General Grants, so no one's going to notice me."

Luke was about to reply when there was a knock at the door, and the voice of one of the maids interrupted, still sounding concerned, as they usually were after one of his headaches. "Master Luke? If you're well enough, His Grace requests your presence in the drawing room."

Luke sighed, looking away from the window and over to the door. "Yes, I'll be there in a moment." He waited until he heard the footsteps of the maid walking away from his door before leaving the room.

The drawing room was exactly as he expected it when he entered, a bowing maid to open the door at his knock and three people seated around the dining table. At the head was his father, Duke Fabre, a stern man who showed little affection to anyone except his wife, seated to his right. Susanne was a sharp contrast to her husband; where the Duke had the fit form of retired military, Susanne was often ill, and left the house even more rarely than did her son.

An empty chair for Luke himself was at his father's left, and the next seat beyond that was filled by their guest. Dorian General Van Grants, the Commandant of the Oracle Knights that were the military arm of the Order of Lorelei, was a heavily tanned man with long, light brown hair pulled into a ponytail behind his head and a small matching beard. That day, he wore the long, formal tabard of his position, rather than the more casual training clothes he usually wore when he came to oversee Luke's swordsmanship lessons a few times a month for most of the year.

Luke entered the room and gave a polite tip of his head to the three at the table, and saw his mother's expression lighten a bit.

"Good that you were well enough to join us," Duke Fabre said, with the slight tone that indicated that his son wasn't a _total_ disappointment. It was a tone of voice that made it hard to not slip into a scowl, which Luke knew would only earn him harsher criticism later. "Take a seat."

"Headaches again?" Van asked pleasantly as he sat down. Luke could only nod.

"Bad enough that I passed out in the garden," he said. Van was one of the few outside of the household who knew of his headaches; in addition to his high military rank, the man was also a talented Seventh Fonist, and was one of the healers who had examined him after the kidnapping, to no avail. In fact, Van was the one who had recovered a sobbing, disoriented Luke from the kidnapping, finding him in the family's own disrepaired vacation home on the southern tip of Rugnica.

"I see. And did you hear the voice again this time?"

When he was younger, Luke had made the mistake of telling people about the voice he sometimes heard during his headaches. He shook his head. "No, nothing." It was one of the few lies he told on a regular basis. "Why did you come today? It's not a usual training day."

Van seemed satisfied with the lie, most likely because Luke had been telling it to almost everyone for the last few years. "As I was saying to your parents, I will be returning to Daath tomorrow, and then travelling for an unknown length of time."

Luke knew that he had to look startled by the statement; when Van wasn't forthcoming with a further explanation, he glanced up the table at his parents instead.

"Fon Master Ion has gone missing," his father began, and Luke didn't need to hear any more than that to nod his understanding. The Fon Master was leader of the entire Order of Lorelei, and the current holder of the position was a boy even younger than Luke with precarious health. With no successor known, it was no surprise that the Commandant of the Oracle Knights would be recalled to help with the search. Most likely, all of the Oracle Knights across the planet were likewise being either recalled to Daath, the city at the center of the religion, or being sent out to search from their present posts.

"So our training is being put on hold, then," Luke surmised, looking back at Van for confirmation. He couldn't help but sound a bit disappointed; the training was one of the few physical activities he was allowed without having to sneak around behind the backs of the staff and his parents.

"I've arranged for someone to come in my stead, so that you don't miss any lessons," Van said. That didn't particularly assuage Luke's feelings; the style Van had taught him in was apparently quite unusual, and Luke had doubts as to whether there were any other teachers that could provide the level of instruction he needed. After all, he was well beyond the basics of stances and grips. Van had just begun transitioning him from simple sword blows into strike artes recently, and the artes were the backbone of the more advanced parts of the style. "And if you feel well enough, I'll train with you to your heart's content today."

Now _that_ was more like it. In spite of the look of concern from his mother, Luke couldn't keep a small grin from forming on his face. "Of course I feel well enough. The headaches always pass quickly."

Van smiled, then looked past Luke to his parents further up the table. "Then I'll meet you in the courtyard. Duke, Milady, by your leave." That last was with a bow as Van stood up to walk towards the courtyard. Luke remained a moment, in case his parents had any further instructions for him.

"Be careful," his mother said gently. The Duke, seemingly, had already mentally dismissed his son.

Luke gathered his practice sword and other equipment from his room, not even bothering to change out of his coat into his usual training clothes; as far as he was concerned, every moment counted. Then it was out to the courtyard, where he could see Van, with a training dummy already set up, talking with Guy.

"Good afternoon, Master Luke," said the gardener, Pere, as he passed. Pere was a relative of Guy's who had taken the boy in a few years before they came to the manor, looking for work, and in spite of his age, he was practically the only gardener in the manor. Sometimes Luke would help him with the flowers, much to the annoyance of his father and the higher staff. "Be careful, there's water over the path."

"Thanks," Luke said as he nimbly jumped over the flow of water; it would dry quickly on the pavement in Baticul's bright sun, but would take much longer to dry out of his shoes if he stepped in it. Baticul's weather might have gorgeous skies most of the time, but that didn't make it any less humid.

Guy and Van looked up at him as he approached, dropping off whatever conversation they were having. Since it was a public place, Guy gave Luke exactly the right amount of a deferential bow. Luke, in turn, gave him a funny look. "What brings you out here, Guy? You don't usually show up to watch me train." They sparred, once in a while - Guy might be older, but he didn't have nearly as much time to devote to his hobbies, so their skill level was about the same - but usually there was too much work to be done around the manor for any of the servants to spend their time sitting around and watching sword training.

"Well, Van is a master swordsman - " Something about the tone seemed different, and it wasn't until later that Luke would realize what was so odd about it: Guy calling Van by name instead of title, something he normally only did with Luke himself. " - so I thought maybe I'd ask for some tips."

"Perhaps another time," Van said, stepping up to the two of them. He looked at the weapon Luke was carrying with a bit of surprise - usually they practiced with wooden blades, and so even the dulled metal was an unusual change. "I see your mother finally let you graduate to a real weapon, Luke."

Luke slid the sword from its sheath with a sheepish expression. The first time he'd been allowed to use a metal sword, not long after his tenth birthday, he'd sliced his knee open so badly that his mother had forbidden it until he was older. "Well, I'm not going to get used to it if I don't practice, and seventeen is old enough," he answered, looping the sheath into his belt with his left hand and holding the sword in his right. He was nearly equally good with either hand for most things, but right-handed swordsmanship was the standard.

"Then why don't you start by reviewing what we went over last time on the training dummy, and we'll continue from there," Van said, taking a few steps towards the edge of the courtyard just to be sure he was out of the way of any stray artes. Not that Luke wasn't sure he could defend himself anyway, but his role as they began was to observe and offer corrections. Actual sparring would wait until after Luke's muscles were warmed up.

Guy also stepped back, but only as far as the bench at the edge of the courtyard, where he sat down in a loose sprawl. "Think I'll watch from over here. Let's see what you've got, Luke."

"What, Ramdas not giving you enough work to do?" Luke teased gently in return, before settling into a stance and focusing on the blade in his hand. Strike artes weren't as complicated as full fonic artes, but most of them did have some fonic component, and it sometimes took concentration to filter the right fonons out of the air.

This time, however, he didn't even get the chance - his focus was broken by Seventh Fonons in the air, far more than there would normally be, and a short melody that vibrated along with them.

_Twei rei tsuae croix ryo twei tsuae..._

The words were unfamiliar, but disrupted his entire line of thought, making him drowsy. The only thing that kept him from falling asleep right there was Van's exclamation of shock behind him.

"A fonic hymn?! It can't be - "

Whatever it couldn't be was cut off by a figure jumping from the roof of the manor into the courtyard. Her shout was loud and confident, and clearly the voice was that of the singer.

"I finally found you, Vandesdelca! Prepare to die, traitor!"

"Tear!" Whoever she was, Van clearly recognized her. "I knew it - " His words were cut off at the woman charged at him with her staff, quickly enough that Van was forced to dodge instead of drawing the long sword at his side to parry.

Luke glanced around - Guy was leaning over the bench, struggling to fight off the sleep of the song. Everyone else he could see had succumbed to it; two guards snoring inside their helmets by the door, and Pere slumped forward into the flower patch. That left it to him.

The woman clearly wasn't expecting that anyone other than Van would be able to move after her spell; when she struck out again, her staff clashed against Luke's blade with a metallic ring that vibrated up to his arm.

"Luke, stop!"

Van's cry of warning came too late - their weapons weren't the only things ringing with the vibration of the clash. The Seventh Fonons that had been dormant in the air sprang to life, echoing, a golden glow falling over Luke and the strange woman at the other end of his blade.

"The Seventh Fonon?" he heard her gasp, but the other voice he heard was more familiar, more immediate, the same he had heard many times during the worst of his headaches. He was starting to get one now, in fact, but this was still the clearest he had ever heard it.

_Resound...! The will of Lorelei shall reach you... and open the way!_

The golden light of the fonons increased, until it was almost blinding. Luke squeezed his eyes shut. For a moment, all he could feel was the pain in his skull and the pressure against his sword.

Then there was a jerk upwards, as though his entire body was pulled up by some force acting on every cell of it at once, and then he felt nothing more.


	2. Chapter 2

"...Luke!"

The smell of flowers and the sea, neither quite familiar, hung in the air, and the ground was too soft to be the courtyard. And then there was that voice...

"Wake up, Luke!"

He cracked his eyes open slowly, looking up into the stars distantly above. They were bright, brighter than he had ever seen them, and if Luke hadn't already heard the voice of the woman kneeling at his side, he might have thought he was all alone in the world. He pulled himself into a sitting position as the woman sighs in relief.

"Good, I was worried you weren't going to wake up..." She brushed some hair out of her face, seemingly unaffected by the glare Luke leveled at her. Her clothes were an Oracle Knights' uniform, though Luke was unfamiliar with the specific division it indicated. "Is something the matter?"

"Who are you?" he demanded, incredulous at how calmly she seemed to be taking this. "What were you doing at the manor? What is this place?"

"I don't know," she answered, presumably in answer to his last question, because it certainly doesn't make sense for any of the others. Luke waited a moment to see if she would provide any more information, and when none was forthcoming, he stood up, determined to at least find out what he could about his surroundings.

The woman trailed behind him as he followed the sound of the sea - if he could find the coast, then he could find his way home eventually. He was not lost, not kidnapped again; he was still free to make his own choices. Even as he climbed to the edge of the overlook, Luke noticed that the stones and plants were not those he was familiar with from the area around Baticul. Indeed, he couldn't recognize most of them at all, except for the selenia flowers clustered along the sides of the path and spreading into a clifftop meadow before him.

(Pere had called the selenias a lovely weed, one that grew off of concentrated fonons instead of sunlight. There had only ever been one pot of them at the manor, carefully contained to keep them from overtaking the rest of the garden. It hadn't really been needed; the flowers barely got enough fonons to bloom, at the top of Baticul's towering cityscape. Here, they grew almost to the exclusion of any other kind of plant; the flow of fonons below the surface must be incredible.)

The ocean stretched into the horizon beyond the edge of the cliffs. Luke had seen it before, from the port of Baticul and, years ago, from the decks of a ship to Belkend, but that was nothing like what stretched before him now. The ocean outside of the city suddenly seemed tamed, placidly doing the work of humanity. This was a wild place, and it echoed in the sound of the surf. If ten people had seen this view before them in a lifetime, Luke would honestly be surprised.

"It's beautiful," he said quietly, but if his companion shared the opinion, she didn't give any sign of it.

"It seems there's no way down from here," she said. "If we follow the ravine back inland and down to the coast, we might be able to at least find a road."

Luke nodded, loath to turn away from the ocean, but at least somewhat impressed by the woman's practicality. As he started to pass her to take the trail down from the meadow, she said, "Tear. My name is Tear."

Odd name, he thought, but kept it to himself, instead stopping to look at her over his shoulder. "And the situation between you and Master Van?"

"That's a personal matter," she said smoothly. Luke hmphed and continued on; it was clear he wasn't going to get an answer about that any time soon.

There were a few monsters down the path; while none of them seemed particularly powerful in the grand scheme of things, even the pink boars that came up to nearly Luke's chest, they were still enough of a challenge that Luke found himself out of breath. With a dull blade and not much experience, he was quickly breathing heavily.

Tear, in spite of being a soldier, wasn't doing much better. She had a few fonic artes at her disposal, including healing artes (that, Luke was incredibly grateful for; this didn't seem like a good situation for putting his grasp of the theory to the test), but it was clear that her surprise assault on the manor was the only way she could have come anywhere near equalling Van. The most potent weapon in her arsenal wasn't really a weapon at all, but the fonic hymn she used to put enemies to sleep, so they could sneak past monsters without getting involved in further fights.

They crossed over the stream and were circling back to do so again when they heard the rustling in the bushes. Luke, prepared for another encounter with monsters, put a hand to the sword belted at his hip. But what came out of the bushes instead was a man, carrying a water vessel and looking as shocked to see them as they were to see him.

"Don't tell me you're with the Dark Wings," the man cried out in fright, and Luke and Tear just looked at each other with matched confusion.

"The Dark Wings?" Tear asked, replacing her staff in its holster. Luke dropped his hand away from his sword; this man wasn't a threat, at least for now.

"They're bandits. Two men and a woman..." The man stopped, glancing behind the two of them. "Wait, there's only two of you."

Luke sighed, and tried to quash his irritation. "We're just travelers who got lost out here. Who are you?"

"I'm a coachman. We lost our drinking water when the jug fell off, so I came here to draw more."

A coach! That meant that not only was there a road nearby, but it was a fairly well-travelled one. Luke can't help the way his shoulders sag with relief.

"Do you go to the capital?" Tear asks, no doubt with the same thought.

"It's my last stop. If you two are looking for a ride, though, it'll be twelve thousand gald apiece."

Immediately, Luke started shuffling through his pockets - twelve thousand is a drop in the bucket compared to the wealth of the manor, but he hadn't been planning to go anywhere and didn't have much money on him. A thorough search only returned a few hundred-gald pieces.

"Can we pay when we reach the capital?" he asked, not really expecting it to work but figuring it can't hurt. As expected, the coachman shakes his head.

"I need payment in advance."

Well, at least they had found the road, even if the walk to any of the cities would be quite long. Even as Luke was planning to ask the man about the directions to the road, Tear reached up to the back of her neck and pulled a large pendant from inside her uniform.

"Take this," she said, putting the pendant in the coachman's hand too quickly for Luke to get a good look at it. The coachman held it up to the dim light of the moon, letting Luke get a proper view of the large, dark gem set into it.

"Wow, this is some gem," the man said, before tucking it safely into a pocket. "Alright, hop aboard. The coach is just a little further down the trail; we're starting up again as soon as I get the water jug filled."

Luke just nodded, waiting until they were some distance from the man before turning to Tear. "You didn't have to do that. I would have survived a walk."

She shook her head. "It's my fault you got involved in this. I'll see you safely back to your manor."

Luke didn't argue. If she wanted to spend her most valuable possessions to help him - and he doubted she owned anything more valuable than that pendant; soldiering wasn't exactly a high-paying job - then what right does he have to complain about it?

They climbed into the coach, getting surprised looks from the other two passengers across from them, and Luke settled in against one wall to drift off to sleep.

* * *

Luke awoke the next day to the coach being thoroughly jostled, even more so than the bump of the road would usually bounce them around. Tear was sitting with her hands folded in her hand, but the two men across from them were both staring intently out the windows.

"What's going on?" Luke asked Tear in an undertone.

"There's a landship chasing bandits down the road," she answered. "I'm surprised you managed to sleep through it this long."

Luke leaned to look out the window. He could just barely see the edge of the landship, chasing a strange, smaller black vehicle, when a voice boomed out over them -

"You, there! Move your coach before you get caught in the crossfire!"

The driver didn't hesitate to obey the command echoing across the plain, so when he swerved, Luke overbalanced and nearly found himself in Tear's lap. Outside the window, the full length of the landship passed them by.

On its side, in full-view, was the crest of the Malkuth Empire.

A fonic barrier went up over the landship, which also provided cover for the coach that was nearly behind it. Luke squashed his face to the window to see what was going on nearly directly behind the coach, and was rewarded with the sight of the bridge, bombed by an intense fonic arte, collapsing behind the strange vehicle the bandits used to make their escape. The landship came to a stop directly in front of the bridge, protected entirely by the barrier.

Malkuth. They were in Malkuth, which meant...

"Wow! That's Malkuth's newest land dreadnought, the Tartarus!"

The coachman's shouted comment interrupted Luke's train of thought, and caught the attention of Tear, who hadn't bothered looking out the window and thus hadn't seen the crest on the landship. "Malkuth?" she asked, shock restrained in her voice.

Luke nodded. "Then this coach is going to Grand Chokmah."

He wouldn't have thought it was possible for Tear to become more pale - as it was, it seemed like she'd seen the sun maybe three days out of the last year - but she managed it somehow. "I see, I was mistaken."

"Everything alright down there, you two?"

"It's fine," Luke said, probably too quickly to entirely ward off suspicion. "It seems we were more lost than we thought - we were supposed to be meeting family in Baticul." Hopefully, the man wouldn't remember Luke's offer to pay him when they reached the capital, and put two and two together; the red hair of Kimlasca's royal line was well known in its home country, but he had no idea about in Malkuth.

"That's the other direction, then. You should have taken the road south, rather than crossing the bridge. Of course, now that the Dark Wings have destroyed it, you can't go back that way..."

Luke fought down the urge to groan loudly and flopped back into his seat. "What's the next stop?" he asked, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.

"That's the village of Engeve. You want to get off there?"

"It would be for the better," Tear said. "Riding the coach all the way to Grand Chokmah would just take us farther from our destination."

"Alright," came the coachman's voice from above. "Then I'll drop you off there."

* * *

Engeve was a tiny village in comparison to the cities Luke was used to; it was perhaps twenty buildings clustered together, most of them the shops of the craftspeople that supported the farms further out. The coach trundled away, leaving Luke and Tear next to a corn patch at the entrance to the village proper.

"We should buy supplies," Luke said. "I doubt we'll be lucky enough to find a coach willing to take us back south." With the bridge out, the only passage from Malkuth into Kimlasca was at the border in the southern half of Rugnica, at either Akzeriuth or Kaitzur.

That border crossing would pose its own problems, with Luke not having a passport (and he couldn't be sure that Tear did, either), but there was no point in worrying about those until they were further south. If they had to sneak across the border, it would probably be easier to do so on the Akzeriuth side; though it was technically a part of Malkuth, the mining town had changed hands in the Hod War, and merchants from both countries came and went regularly. With Tear's skill as a healer and his own improving swordsmanship, they could probably get work as bodyguards in exchange for passage across.

Tear nodded her agreement, a single small dip of her head. "And find somewhere to sleep tonight. We can do our shopping this afternoon and set off in the morning."

They turned towards the marketplace, where Luke was pleasantly surprised by the low prices of all the foodstuffs. He had known Baticul's food supply, itself from Engeve and similar villages throughout Malkuth's breadbasket across the Rugnica Plains, suffered from extensive mark-ups, but it was still different seeing it in person. He was quickly able to pile together two packs full of food, along with supplies from the blacksmith to put a proper fighting edge on his sword, without dipping too deeply into the coin he still thought of as pocket change.

As they turned towards the inn, Luke paused, seeing someone in white clothes - their gender impossible to tell at this distance - sneaking around one of the food storehouses. He had heard the merchants talking about someone stealing food in the market; could this be the culprit?

"Hold on," he said to Tear, before slipping as quietly as he could in that direction. The figure didn't seem to notice him, or Tear following a few steps behind.

Up closer, there was something familiar about the figure's clothes. Luke couldn't place them, but apparently Tear could - he heard her whisper the beginning of a sentence, too quiet for him to hear, before they were interrupted.

"Stop! Thieves!"

"What?" Luke's head snapped up in surprise, but before he could object, two of the men from the market had grabbed his arms and dragged him off, Tear right along with him. "No, stop, there's been a misunderstanding - "

But no amount of his words would reach the men, and so it was that Luke and Tear were dumped before the village's mayor, a round woman named Rose with hair red enough to make Luke wonder if she was some distant relative, descended from a bastard child of the royal family shuffled off to Malkuth to prevent scandal. Also in her house was a member of the Malkuth military - Luke didn't know their rankings by sight, but the man obviously possessed some higher rank.

It was equally obvious that the two were being interrupted, and Rose was not particularly pleased with that fact. "Hush!" she hissed at the men dragging Luke and Tear in. "We've got an important guest from the military here. Calm down."

"How can we be calm? We've finally caught the food thieves!"

Luke made an annoyed noise and tried to wiggle his way free, to have at least some dignity, but to no avail - the men were tall and strong enough to simply lift him up off the floor. "We're not thieves," he insisted. "We were following someone lurking around the warehouse, and theymight be the thief, but the two of us only arrived in town today."

"A likely story!" said the man holding Luke's right side angrily. Rose made a placating gesture towards them.

"Let's all just calm down, alright? We'll hear what everyone has to say."

The military officer set his cup back in its saucer with a clink. "Yes, please do." His tone was incredibly condescending, though Luke couldn't tell who it was directed at. Regardless, he couldn't help but take a dislike to the man.

Rose turned back to him, with an apologetic smile on her face. "My apologies, Colonel. You shouldn't have to hear about our small-town problems."

"No, by all means. The Tartarus is only stopping here to resupply; I wouldn't want to prevent you from taking care of the day-to-day concerns of your position."

"You command the Tartarus?" Luke cut in, and he was rewarded with the smallest of nods. "Then you saw us - we were in the coach you nearly ran over."

"Ah. I wondered if that might be the case." The whole room looked to the colonel as he shrugged and stood from his seat. "Then you couldn't have been the thieves, since food has been going missing every few days for nearly four weeks now - isn't that correct, Rose?"

The mayor nodded her head. "That's right. If they really did just get to town today, they couldn't be the thieves." She gave the men holding Luke and Tear an intense look, and after a moment, they dropped Luke to stand on his own feet again. "Looks like we're no closer to an answer there. Sorry for the trouble."

"Actually," came a voice from the doorway, "I may have an answer to that." Luke looked over to the door, and saw what could only be the figure he had initially followed towards the warehouse, a very small person whose gender was really no clearer up close and from the front than it had been from the distance following them.

The men clustered around the door stepped aside to let them step through, and Luke and Tear both also stepped out of the path. Luke tried to catch Tear's eye, but all of her attention was focused on the new arrival, a thoughtful look on her face.

"I was a bit curious, so I investigated the food storehouse." The figure handed Rose something, their head blocking Luke's view of the item. "I found this fur caught on the edge of the door. There were several other clumps of it on the ground as well."

Rose lifted the fur up to the light, and Luke could see that it was a strange shade of blue. "This is fur from a sacred cheagle," she said.

One of the men beside Luke snorted. "So our culprit is a bunch of those guys? Seems kind of fishy to me."

Rose started to round on him, but the colonel, mostly faded into the background, cleared his throat gently.

"Well, I think that takes care of that mystery," he said. "I'm sure these men have work to do, and our young travelers have somewhere they need to be."

"Quite right," Rose agreed. "I'll figure out something about the cheagles; the rest of you just go on home."

Luke knew a dismissal when he heard it, so as much as he wanted to stay and listen to the discussion (there was something about the embroidery on those white robes tugging at his memory), he and Tear had already made themselves far too conspicuous today. The last thing he wanted was to be discovered as one of Kimlasca's royal heirs, this deep in Malkuth territory for no apparent reason. He followed the group of townsmen out the door.

Once they were outside, Tear's steps slacked, letting Luke and the men carry on down the path in front of her. Luke paused, turning back to look at her. "Is something the matter?"

"Why is Fon Master Ion here?" she said in an undertone, glancing back at the house. Luke almost tripped, shocked enough to forget for a second that he was walking.

"That's the Fon Master?" he hissed, too loudly to really call a whisper, and he slowed to a stop on the path. "I'd heard he was missing, but that certainly didn't seem like he was here of anything but his own will."

"Missing? That's news to me." Tear looked back at the house. "You're right; he certainly isn't behaving as though there's anything to be concerned about."

"Um, excuse me. Are you talking about Ion? Do you know where he is?"

The girl's voice, from somewhere behind the middle of his back, gave Luke another brief moment of panic. He looked around and down to see a young teenager with black hair up in two pigtails, wearing a more traditional Oracle Knights uniform than Tear's (except that the majority of it was a bright pink).

"He's at the mayor's house," Tear said evenly.

"Oh, good!" the girl said with evident relief, a bright smile taking over her face. "Thank you!"

And she turned and ran off, before Luke could get out even the beginning of a "Wait - " After that, he turned to Tear. "So who was that?"

"A Fon Master Guardian. Whatever Ion's purpose for being here is, it seems he's come on an official matter." Tear rested her chin in her hand. "This just grows odder and odder..."

"You're telling me," Luke muttered, before turning to lead the way back to the inn.


	3. Chapter 3

Happy Lorelei day, kids. Comments appreciated.

* * *

They woke early the next morning, while Luke expected the inn to still be quiet. Instead, there were already the sounds of people waking up in the town around them. Farmers started their days much earlier than did Baticul's nobility, after all.

At the edge of town, Luke saw a flash of white robes again, this time headed off towards the wilderness to the north. He stopped, watching Ion head off alone.

"What is he doing?" he asked, as much to himself as to Tear at his side.

"That road leads to the Cheagle Woods," she said. "Perhaps he's investigating the thefts?"

"He shouldn't go alone," Luke muttered. "There's probably monsters in there - what good is that Fon Master Guardian if he's leaving her behind all the time?"

Tear didn't answer, but she brushed her hair out of her face and looked down the road south, just briefly, before turning towards the road Luke clearly intended to start down.

Indeed, that was all the agreement he needed to tail after Ion's disappearing speck towards the forest in the distance.

* * *

By the time they reached the forest, the sun was halfway its peak, and Ion had been visually lost in the greenery for some time. Tear, to her credit, didn't suggest turning back; if anything, the few monsters they fought upon entering the forest had strengthened Luke's argument thatsomeone needed to keep an eye on the Fon Master. The fights left the two of them - both fairly athletic, if unpracticed - breathing hard. It wasn't hard to imagine how difficult they would be for Ion, not only smaller and younger but known to be of poor health.

Indeed, when they do come upon Ion, the boy was in the center of a ring of monsters, a pack of the small wolves native to the area. Luke was prepared to rush in, his sword half-drawn, when Tear caught hold of his arm. "Wait, Luke - "

Ion's hand, raised above his body as high as it would reach, glowed with a bright light, and the boy slammed it into the earth, a white fonic glyph blooming around his feet. The arte blasted the wolves with light, until they were little more than dust. It was beyond doubt the most powerful arte Luke had ever seen; he glanced back at Tear as his vision cleared, nodding his thanks. If he had been caught in that... It probably wouldn't have been the end of him, but it would have been near enough.

The fonons of the arte dispersed back into the surroundings, leaving a tottering Ion in the center of the clearing. This time, Luke's progress towards the boy was a bit more cautious; the hand he offered to the Fon Master was nothing beyond polite. "Are you alright, Fon Master?"

Ion grabbed onto his hand like it was a lifeline; Luke was surprised to suddenly be supporting most of the boy's weight, even if it was slight. "Ah, thank you - I'm just a bit tired. The Daathic arte I used was just a bit too powerful..." Regaining his balance, Ion looked the two of them over, his green eyes brightening with recognition. "Ah, you're the two from Engeve yesterday!"

"That's right," Luke said, feeling suddenly glad that he was rarely invited to court affairs with people as highly ranked as the Fon Master. If he had been, he's certain that Ion would have recognized him instantly. As it is, he hesitated before giving his name, doing his best to tone down the obvious Kimlascan roots of his accent. "I'm Luke."

"'The light if the sacred flame'..." For a moment, Luke was certain that Ion has recognized it, but the boy just smiled warmly as he released Luke's supporting hand. "It's a nice name."

"I'm Locrian Sergeant Tear Grants. First Platoon, Oracle Knights Intelligence Division, under Grand Maestro Mohs' command." The well-practiced speed at which Tear's rank rolled off her tongue was almost fast enough that Luke's brain couldn't catch up to the implications of her family name.

"Oh! You're Van's younger sister!" Fortunately or not, Ion was perhaps taken a bit less by surprise. "I've heard of you, but this is the first time we've met, isn't it?"

"You're his sister?!" Luke choked out in absolute shock. And though he could now see some similarity that it had been pointed out - the color of their hair, the shape of their cheekbones - it still didn't look to him like they could be siblings. Tear was pale, small, and slim aside from her obvious curves; Van was dark as a desert native and stood above nearly everyone who stood beside him.

Before he could ask anything more, Tear shot him a look that clearly meant _keep your mouth shut_. A rustle in the bushes provided a change of subject so perfectly timed that he had to wonder if she has planned it. Luke automatically put a hand to his sword again, but all that appeared was a small creature, with bright pink fur and ears each nearly the size of its body.

"A cheagle!" Ion whispered, but even that was enough to startle the beast, and with a small squeak it turned and skittered away into the brush.

"That's why you came here, right?" Luke asked, and Ion nodded, starting to follow after it along a trail that wrapped around the bush. Luke let the the boy get a few steps ahead, out of earshot, before turning to Tear.

Before he could ask any of the questions that were burning in his mind, she shut them all down with, "I told you, it's a personal matter," and started after Ion. Luke was left to bring up the rear, wondering on what planet 'fratricide' was merely a personal matter.

* * *

Glimpses of cheagles lead them slowly in what Luke hoped was the right direction, along the stream that flowed through the wood. Soon, they arrived at a clearing where the cheagles seemed confident enough that they didn't scuttle into the brush at the first hint of anything larger than themselves.

In the center of the clearing was a massive tree trunk, and a little investigation found a path across the stream into the underside that tall enough that Luke didn't have any trouble entering the tree hollow. A few apples were scattered near the base.

Luke bent and picked one up, rubbing it clean on the leg of his pants before examining it. "This is Engeve's stamp, isn't it?" he said, showing the fruit to Ion, who nodded.

"It seems they really are the thieves. But, I'm sure they must have a reason." And without any further comment, Ion stepped past Luke and down the little path into the tree. _No wonder his guardian keeps losing track of him_, Luke thought as he followed.

The inside of the tree was massive, and the floor at Ion's feet, already littered in scraps from Engeve, was rapidly being overtaken by a huge group of cheagles, all squeaking over each other into a cacophony that echoed all the way up the tree hollow. Luke and Tear both had to be careful to not step on any of them as they went to stand behind Ion, who crouched down to speak to the cheagles directly.

"Please let me through," Ion said, with the same gentle and respectful tone he used towards humans. "I'd like to speak to your elder."

There was another flurry of squeaking before the creatures parted; one, obviously elderly and clutching what looked like a bangle in its front paws, tottered forward on its back legs.

"And for what purpose have you come here?"

The nasally voice unmistakably came from the cheagle. Ion didn't seem surprised; Luke glanced at Tear, expecting her to have the same look of shock that he was wearing, but instead her eyes were slightly glazed over, and a faint blush was rising to her cheeks.

"We came to investigate the thefts from Engeve," Ion said, settling down to sit on his heels as he spoke. Luke awkward sunk down as well, sitting cross-legged and tapping Tear on the hip when she didn't follow suit.

"I see." The cheagle's ears, already droopy, flopped even lower, as though even the attempt at holding them up was too much. "So, you've come to exterminate us."

That seemed to knock Tear out of her reverie; her outburst was disbelieving, accompanied by her hands tightening on the divided skirts of her uniform. "What? Of course not! Cheagles are sacred to the Order."

"Why have you been stealing food?" Luke cut in on the tail end of her words. "We saw the apples out there - you clearly aren't eating it."

The elder's ears perked up, then flopped again. "To preserve the cheagle tribe. One of our youngsters caused a fire in the northern forest, and drove the ligers that live there out of their territory." From somewhere near the back of the assembled cheagles, there was a small whine. "If they go hungry, the ligers will turn to prey on us."

"That's horrible," Ion said quietly. Luke couldn't disagree, even as he turned the implications of the situation over in his mind. He had hardly expected the first real test of his political studies to be a bunch of monsters in a forest halfway across the world from Baticul, but surely there had to be some solution...

If the cheagles didn't stop taking food, then they would be eaten - and when they were gone, the ligers would probably move south, towards the villages. But Engeve couldn't afford to feed a pack of ligers on top of its usual crops.

"Would the ligers be willing to negotiate?" Luke asked. The tips of the elder's ears twitched in response.

"It's possible, though I doubt you'll get very far with them. They do not speak the human language."

"Would it be possible for us to borrow one of your people as a translator?" Ion asked sweetly.

There was a pause, and then the elder nodded. Turning back to the group of cheagles gathered around them, it squeaked a short command into the crowd. A blue cheagle, a bit smaller than the rest, came forward from the back, ears flicking nervously. The two of them spoke for a moment in a series of hushed squeaks, before the elder turned back to the three humans seated on the floor of the hollow.

"This is the child who started the fire to the north. I will send him with this sorcerer's ring to be your interpreter." The elder let go of the ring, then gestured for the young cheagle to step into it.

"My name's Mieu!" The little cheagle's voice was potentially the most high-pitched, grating thing Luke had ever heard; he wasn't able to avoid wincing at the sound of it. "It's nice to meet you!"

* * *

Their new companion was perfectly happy to chatter all the way to the liger nest, to the annoyance of Luke alone, and the cheagle was also happy to demonstrate its control over the Fifth Fonon, which was significantly less obnoxious. Though even the cheagle was surprised at its range, enhanced as it was by the sorcerer's ring; according to Ion, the fact that he could breathe fire at all was quite precocious for a cheagle, who normally didn't have the ability until sexual maturity.

In short, Luke learned far more about cheagles over the next two hours of walking through the depths of the forest than he had ever thought he would have a reason to know. It came in handy, however, when it came to burning out the bottom of a rotten tree to make a bridge across a stream too deep to cross on foot.

Of course, it turned out the stream wasn't only keeping them on the cheagle side of the forest, because it was only after that that they began to encounter roving ligers. The predatory monsters were much more agile than the large birds and floating snails elsewhere in the forest, and even just keeping them away from the vulnerable Ion was a significant task.

Luke wiped the sweat off his face as Tear's hymn finished and turned the lurking predators into drowsy creatures, which slumped over onto the forest floor. They were trying to make it through without actually harming any of the ligers, for fear it would impact any potential negotiations, and that made the trip through the forest even more difficult.

"How many of them are there?" Luke muttered to himself, though perhaps a little too loudly, given the look Ion (cheagle clinging to his shoulder) gave him.

"This does appear to be a very large pack. It's no wonder they're having difficulties finding enough food in the forest."

"Let's hope they don't decide to go looking in the village," Tear said quietly, as the three of them slipped past the sleeping ligers and further down the trail. Luke couldn't help but wonder if just killing off a portion of the liger population wouldn't be an easier solution than trying to talk with them. But he had been the one to bring up the idea in the first place, and Ion seemed determined to try reaching a peaceful solution first, if they could, so he didn't voice the thought.

Another liger, a bit bulkier than the others, guarded a burrow up ahead, large enough that Luke could enter without stooping too much and Ion wouldn't have to duck at all. As soon as they were within range, Tear's voice lifted in song once more, and soon the liger had curled up at its post, tail faintly twitching in the depths of some dream. Luke held his breath the entire time they snuck past.

The den proper was a bit further down; the passage leading to it was full of stones and had a ceiling patched together by roots, but the liger queen slept within a much more open area, one floored by mossy rocks and lit by scattered beams of sunlight from above. She was a massive creature, even curled in her nest; when she stood, Luke thought she would be more than half again his height. Her ears twitched in the direction of the humans and cheagle as they entered.

"Oh, dear," Ion said quietly, confirming that he had noticed the same thing Luke had about the scene; the liger queen was curled around a group of eggs, perhaps four or five, each themselves as large as a human's head. "Mieu, would you please go speak to her?"

"Yes, sir!" The cheagle jumped off the Fon Master's shoulder and hopped a few feet towards the liger queen, squeaking as he went.

The queen stood up, body protectively over her eggs, and roared, a sound that wasn't so much a sound as a blast of foul-breathed wind. Luke barely caught the cheagle that was sent flying by the roar, grabbing the ring around Mieu's body to pull the cheagle to his chest.

From that position, clinging for dear life to Luke's coat, Mieu translated, "She said her eggs are about to hatch, so go away!" The cheagle's ears twitched furiously, and he ducked his face under Luke's collar. "She's really mad that I burned down their home."

"This is bad," Tear said. "Ligers are even more aggressive when protecting their young."

"And when the young hatch, they'll need even more food," Luke pointed out.

"Could you ask them to leave this land?" Ion said to Mieu, and even as the cheagle hopped down from his shirt, Luke was fairly sure that they were past talking politely about it at this point.

Sure enough, the response from the queen was an even louder roar - one that rattled stones free from the ceiling, dropping onto their group. Luke just reacted, his sword coming out to knock away the rock that would have slammed into and squashed the small cheagle below it.

"Th-thank you..." Mieu scampered back over to Ion, still shaking from the close call. From behind the Fon Master's ankles, he continued, "The queen says she's going to kill us and feed us to her children."

"Then that's the end of negotiations," Luke said, readying his sword. Behind him, he heard Tear draw the staff that was her primary weapon - her knives wouldn't do much more than annoy the queen, unless she managed to get a lucky shot in the beast's eye.

"Fon Master, please step back," she said, and that was all the time they had before the queen charged. Luke saw Ion, with the cheagle in his arms, duck behind a rock and out of the way, but that was all the concern he could spare for anyone else.

The liger queen was far more powerful than her kin outside, and those had given Luke enough trouble, though some of that had been from trying to pull his blows and keep from injuring them. There was none of that here; even with his full strength behind it, Luke's sword barely cut into the queen's flank, and Tear's artes weren't doing much better. Indeed, when the queen's claws cut deep into Luke's leg, Tear had to abandon trying to do damage at all in order to focus on healing the growing list of his injuries.

"Ignore my arm!" Luke told her, as another blow of that paw left three deep gashes all the way through his clothes and deep into his shoulder. Lifting the arm above his head would be impossible for now, but he was much more concerned with being able to move across the wet rocks and keep out of the queen's range as best he could.

"But - !" Whatever Tear had been going to say was lost in another roar as Luke switched his sword to his left hand and slashed it into the sensitive pads of the queen's forepaw. A painful blow, but not a particularly damaging one in the long run; even with the limp, the queen was still fast enough that it was hard for Luke to keep out of her reach in the small space.

And he and Tear were both tiring much more quickly than she was. There was an all-too-high chance that they would die here, out in a forest in the middle of nowhere. The thought gave new energy to Luke's blows - not here, not while his family wouldn't even know what had happened to him...

"Allow me."

Luke's conscious mind, so focused on the battle, barely registered the voice at first. What he felt was the rise of fonons in the air, barely enough warning for him to get out of the way before the arte crashed into the liger queen. Splash was a fairly standard arte, but well above Luke's own ability. And certainly he couldn't have followed the torrent of water with the Thunder Blade that crashed down almost immediately after, the remnants of the water serving to boost the power of lightning.

The liger queen twitched and slumped sideways, sprawling with her paws spread. Her labored breathing continued for a moment, then abruptly went still. Luke watched a moment longer before awkwardly sliding his sword into the sheath that was still attached to his left hip, and looked back to the entrance of the cavern.

It was the Malkuth officer from Engeve who stood there, hands tucked into the pockets of his uniform as though he hadn't done anything particularly interesting. Luke found himself immediately reassessing the man's ability, and thus the potential threat he represented. Behind the man, Ion had come out from his hiding place, still holding Mieu, and Tear was stowing her staff in her position nearby.

As concerning as it was for them to have been rescued by an officer of the Malkuth military, Luke couldn't be anything but grateful. He sank to a seat on a rock as Tear approached, already speaking the incantation of a healing arte.

"I didn't expect you to be ambidextrous," she said as she finished, the golden warmth of Seventh Fonons settling into Luke's right arm. "Though I suppose I shouldn't be complaining. I don't know if we would have lasted until the Colonel arrived if I had had to heal your sword arm as well as your leg."

"I'm naturally left-handed," Luke said, shrugging the shoulder before testing the motion in the rest of his arm. "But it was a problem growing up," he continued, carefully avoiding any mention any mention of the royal court, "So I learned swordsmanship right-handed, along with most everything else."

Behind Tear, the colonel and Ion had approached the nest of liger eggs; they had been in the radius of the fonic artes, and were all broken, as far as Luke could tell from his seat. Even if they hadn't been, he was sure that the electricity would have sterilized them.

"It's probably for the better," Ion was saying, and though Luke couldn't see his expression, the Fon Master's voice carried remorse.

"Indeed. A nest of this size would have put the village in danger," said the officer. "Though I can't approve of you running off and putting yourself at risk like this."

"I'm sorry, Jade," Ion said, surprising Luke with how familiarly he referred to the colonel. "But the cheagles are sacred to the Order, so I felt I had to take some responsibility for the trouble they caused." From where he was being held by the Fon Master, Mieu gave a small whine.

"I'm not the one you should be apologizing to," Jade said, with a look past Luke and Tear toward the entrance to the cavern. "Isn't that right, Anise?"

Luke followed the man's gaze as he stood up, and it was fortunate that he did, otherwise the girl who bounced into the cavern at the words would likely have just run right over him on her path to the Fon Master. "Ion! What were you thinking?" the tiny Fon Master Guardian exclaimed as she came to a stop near her not-much-larger charge. Ion gave her a somewhat sheepish look and scratched at Mieu's ears.

"I'm sorry, Anise. But I had to get to the bottom of things."

"Ugh." The girl fixed Ion with an unimpressed look. "As long as you weren't hurt, I guess." A thought which caused her to look towards Luke and Tear, her expression first thoughtful, then relieved and apologetic. "Thank you for protecting Ion! I know he can be a lot of trouble sometimes."

"It wasn't that much trouble," Luke said, a polite lie. Protecting Ion hadn't been that difficult, but he was the one who had dragged them into trouble in the first place.

"It was an honor to protect the Fon Master," Tear said, and Luke had the feeling it was with about the same degree of sincerity.

Behind the two small members of the Order of Lorelei, the colonel chuckled slightly, and Luke got the distinct feeling that at least one person had seen through him. "Anise, could I speak to for a moment?"

Rather than answering, the girl just took a few steps backwards so that Jade could lean and whisper something in her ear. She nodded vigorously, then twisted her face into an overblown pout. "Fine, but you'd better take care of Ion for me!"

"Of course," Jade replied, straightening and pushing his glasses back onto his nose. "And his new companions, as well."

Anise looked apprehensive at that, but then nodded and darted for the entrance. Within the span of a breath, she was gone.

Ion looked after her for a moment, then turned his attention to Jade. "The letter arrived, didn't it?"

"It did. So there's no need to stick around this forest any longer." If he weren't so calm, Luke would have thought the man was in quite a hurry.

In Ion's arms, Mieu perked his head, ears twitching. "But we need to report to the elder!"

Ion nodded and gave Jade a small, apologetic look. "The cheagles do need to know what happened here."

Jade sighed. "I suppose as long as you make it quick."

* * *

Luke had hoped that the walk through the rest of the forest would provide him and Tear a chance to distance themselves from the Fon Master and the Malkuth Colonel, but it seemed he wasn't going to have any such luck. Jade kept a careful eye on the both of them; more careful, in fact, than the eye he kept out for ligers and other monsters on the trail. Not that Luke could blame the man; battles that left him and Tear overcome with sweat were now over in the time it took Jade to cast an arte, leaving the two of them on nothing more than glorified stalling duty. At least now, there was no reason to hesitate against the ligers that attacked them; after nearly being killed by their queen, it was hard for Luke to feel any particular remorse about the predator's corpses they left behind them, either.

When they arrived at the hollow tree, Mieu jumped from his position on Ion's shoulder to speak to the elder in a series of squeaks and chirps. The younger cheagle forfeited the ring, and they spoke a few more words to each other, Mieu's ears drooping at the end of the conversation as the elder turned towards the group of humans.

"Mieu told me what happened. You faced great danger on our behalf, and we are very grateful," the elder said, with a small incline of its head that looked very much like a cheagle bow.

"Of course," Ion replied. "Aiding the cheagles is a part of Yulia's teaching."

"Even after two thousand years, I am glad that someone remembers Yulia's promise." The elder nodded, satisfied. "But the original cause was Mieu burning the ligers' home, so he needs to atone for his mistake."

"What are you going to do?" Ion asked, concern in his voice.

"I will exile Mieu from our tribe, for one turning of the seasons." The elder turned away from Ion and hopped in Luke's direction. Confused, Luke knelt down closer, so that the small creature didn't have to strain itself trying to speak up at him. "I hear that you saved Mieu's life. Cheagles do not forget their debts. For the period of his exile, he will serve at your side."

"...I see." Luke wasn't exactly sure what to say to that. He hadn't intended anything like this when he saved the cheagle from the falling rocks; he'd just reacted. But even as he watched, the elder retreated back to the group of cheagles and turned the ring back over to Mieu, who had been at the center of a family of similarly-colored cheagles. Mieu bounced into the ring and then over to Luke, giving him as big a smile as possible.

"I'll do my best to be useful, Master!"

Luke supposed he would have to get used to that shrill voice. He gathered the cheagle up and steadied the creature on his shoulder, the way Ion had done before; Mieu's tiny claws clung to his collar and held the cheagle in place surprisingly well.

"Are you sure? My home is..." Luke glanced at Jade in the corner of his vision. "Very far from here."

"Mieu... I'll be okay." The cheagle scooted so that he was right up against Luke's neck.

"Well, I'd say that takes care of our report." Jade adjusted his glasses and started towards the exit, forcing the rest of the group to follow. Luke lingered a moment, watching the cheagles that waved Mieu off before following. A few left the hollow on his heels, and followed the humans along the trail for a bit before disappearing into the forest. Soon, they disappeared into the shadows.

Anise was waiting for them in the center of the path at the edge of the forest, her pink and white uniform impossible to miss amidst all the green. "I brought the Tartarus just like you asked!" she said brightly as they approached, gesturing out to the fields beyond the forest. Sure enough, the landship was not too far in the distance.

"Then I guess this is where we part ways - " Luke started to say, but he was cut off by a strange gesture of Jade's that lead to a spear point materializing at his throat. Mieu gave a frightened squeak and jumped onto his head, yanking on Luke's hair as he went.

"Jade, what's the meaning of this?" Ion asked, looking quite worried - so he hadn't been in on this plan of Jade's. Probably because it didn't seem like the Fon Master could lie to save his life; Luke wouldn't have told him, either, if he was planning something like this.

Malkuth soldiers stepped off a side path behind them, cutting off the path of retreat. "Don't worry, they won't be hurt," Jade reassured the Fon Master, before directing his last comment at Luke and Tear (who had a hand inching toward her knives). "As long as they don't resist."

Luke carefully raised his hands in a gesture of nonaggression, and Tear did likewise after he gave her a brief glare. _So much for getting out of this without being noticed by the Malkuth military_, he thought bitterly as Jade pulled the spear from his throat and started to lead the group towards the Tartarus, wearing a somewhat disconcerting smile.

"Be good now, you two."


	4. Chapter 4

Aboard the Tartarus, they were escorted to a "cell" that obviously doubled as a soldiers' cabin a short time before; there was still a uniform jacket hanging from on of the bunks, and a book on fonic artes nearly kicked under another. Ion and Anise stayed with Luke and Tear, all of them settling into the chairs around the table in the center of the cabin.

"Jade will be back soon," Ion tried to reassure them. "He's just getting the Tartarus started."

Though he couldn't blame the Fon Master for trying, Luke wasn't much in the mood for reassurance, and instead retrieved the book from under the bunk and opted to bury his nose in it while waiting. Soon enough, the vibration of engines hummed throughout the landship, and then they were under way.

The door slid open to admit the Malkuth colonel about ten minutes later, just when Luke was deciding that Malkuth's military fonic jargon was beyond his understanding. Luke folded the book and straightened in his seat; as far as he was concerned, this called for formality on par with the Kimlascan court. (Indeed, it felt very much like a court as a pair of soldiers filed in to stand guard at the door - just a very different kind.)

Jade didn't seem to be taking the situation nearly as seriously. Though the man remained standing, his face was one of neutral amusement as he adjusted his glasses. "Two days ago, a Seventh Fonon Hyperresonance came from the direction of Baticul and converged inside Malkuth territory, near Tataroo Valley. Now," and Luke could swear that look not only made the hair on the back of his neck rise, but made it rise so far it probably lifted the ponytail from his neck. "If you two were the source of that hyperresonance, that would make you guilty of illegally crossing the border into our country, wouldn't it?"

"It would," Luke agreed, trying to keep his tone of voice under control. "But do you have any evidence that we were?"

The colonel just chuckled before folding his hands behind his back. "Moving on - Tear, we already know you're with the Oracle Knights. But what about you, Luke? What's your full name?"

Luke narrowed his eyes. He didn't believe for a moment that, if this man had figured out the source of the hyperresonance, that he hadn't also put together Luke's identity. There was only one redhaired boy named Luke in Baticul. "...Luke fon Fabre," he admitted grudgingly.

Across the room, Anise and Ion both sat up straighter, surprise coloring their faces, but, as Luke had expected, Jade didn't look shocked in the slightest. "The son of Duke Fabre, who married into the Kimlascan royal family? Why are you in Malkuth?"

"We're only here because our Seventh Fonons triggered a hyperresonance," Tear answered. Luke looked in her direction and saw, up against the wall past her, that Anise was giving him a predatory look.

He shivered. If the feeling that look gave him was what Guy experienced from the maids, he felt he could understand his friend's fear a little better. "I know that tensions between our countries are high," he said, focusing his attention back in on Jade. "But this was no act of aggression from Kimlasca, and the only thing I want to do in your country is get out of it."

"A bit blunt, but understandable," Jade replied. He turned to Ion. "What do you think, Fon Master? Shall we make use of them?"

"I believe they're telling the truth," Ion replied. Of everyone in the room, Luke observed, the Fon Master appeared the least affected by Jade's personality and the implications that could be read into the colonel's words. "And having someone from Kimlasca accompanying us would certainly make things go more smoothly. But it's up to Luke if he decides to help."

"Help with what?" Luke cut in quickly, before Jade could go back to talking with Ion like he wasn't in the room.

"We're headed for Kimlasca under orders from His Majesty, Peony IX, Emperor of Malkuth," Jade said, managing to answer the question without providing any real information at all.

"To declare war?" Tear asked, words coming out in a rush, her voice just barely showing panic.

"To deliver a letter," Luke corrected, thinking back to the conversation Ion and Jade had had in the liger cavern. He watched Jade's expression carefully as he said it, but the man gave nothing away in either direction.

"Relax, Tear," Anise said from her position on the far side of the room. "We're trying to prevent a war from breaking out." She looked as though she might say more, but a glance from Jade was enough to prompt her to shut her mouth.

"That's not public information, Anise." The colonel's words seemed to suitably quiet the energetic girl for the moment, as he turned his attention back to Luke and Tear. "But yes, that is our intention. We'll release you now, at least as far as moving about the ship, though I'm afraid you can't be allowed in any areas containing military secrets." Somehow, he managed to make that sound almost regretful, an emotion that Luke was sure was completely fabricated.

"So you're asking us to agree to help you without really telling us anything," Luke said, frowning. He folded his arms, not looking at anyone else in the room, though out of the corner of his eye he could see Ion's sheepish expression.

"It's a state secret," Jade replied from outside his line of vision. "As a member of Kimlasca's royal family, I'm certain you can understand."

Luke sighed, unfolding his arms. To refuse just because the person making the request was a pain in the ass was petty, and he knew it. "As a member of the royal family," he began, "I can't sit back when the lives of my people are at risk. You don't need to strong-arm me into helping to prevent a war - anyone in my position would agree to help, if they had any morals at all."

He looked back at the group then; Ion was smiling warmly, Tear was looking a little surprised at him, and Jade was adjusting his glasses again, his expression satisfied.

"Then I suppose we should fill you in..."

* * *

It took nearly half an hour for Jade and Ion to explain the situation, with most of the explanation actually coming from the Fon Master, rather than the colonel. The politics on Malkuth's end, after all, were fairly straightforward; their nobility was getting testy, especially those with lands near the border in southern Rugnica, but Emperor Peony IX had no desire for a war. It was the Order of Lorelei that was causing problems, as factions within the church tried to make Ion do whatever it was they wanted.

It didn't help that Luke was only passingly familiar with most of the players in Daath's political scene - in one case, in a very literal sense. Tear might swear up and down that the Grand Maestro, Mohs, had good intentions, but Luke couldn't throw his impression of the brief time he'd encountered the man in his uncle's court. There had been something about the way the man looked at him that made Luke feel as though he was livestock being drawn up for slaughter.

In any case, getting across the border would most likely be fairly straightforward, in spite of the fact that Luke wasn't carrying identification. His father's old military rank meant that he had met most of the higher-ranking officers at least once or twice at formal dinners, which was enough to be recognized as who he claimed to be, rather than an imposter. And, of course, it was likely that Kimlasca had sent someone across the border to search for him; the base at the Kaitzur checkpoint was high on the list of places to be notified about his missing status, given where he had been discovered after the kidnapping seven years ago.

After the discussion, Jade retreated to take care of matters on the bridge, and Luke somehow found himself on a small maintenance deck with Ion, both of them having left the cabin for a bit of fresh air. The landship was moving at a fairly quick pace, generating a wind that blew Luke's hair around his face and Ion's robes around the Fon Master's knees.

"I wanted to thank you personally," Ion said, smiling as he stepped up the the railing Luke was leaning against. Luke turned his head to give the Fon Master a confused look, and Ion continued, "To be honest, I was more than a bit nervous about how we were going to cross into Kimlasca. Your arrival might have been an accident, but I think it was quite fortunate for us."

Luke nodded a little absently, not quite sure if he agreed. True, it was lucky that he would be able to help stop the war, but he'd much rather have been at home in the first place. Home was safe; no need to worry about kidnappings, or what his family would do if he never came home -

"Luke?" Ion's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Are you alright? Your face is looking a bit pale."

Luke straightened a bit, pushing himself up off the rail with his arms, trying to not squeeze it in a white-knuckled grip. "I'm fine," he said, a little too quickly and with a little too much irritation. Ion's expression of gentle concern didn't change, and as it was clear that he wasn't going to leave, Luke eventually was able to settle his breathing and loosen his grip on the rail.

"I just want to get home as soon as possible," he said. "I'm sure my family thinks I've been kidnapped by Malkuth again; that by itself could lead to war, even if tensions weren't so high."

"Again?" Ion said, surprise in his voice. Luke didn't answer, instead letting go of the rail to turn and lean his back against it instead, facing the Fon Master at a bit less of an awkward angle. Ion's expression quickly became sympathetic. "I'm sorry, it must be difficult to talk about. I didn't mean to pry."

"It's fine," Luke said quietly. He didn't really talk about the kidnapping much, even with Guy, but there was something about Ion... He was easy to trust, and what harm could come from telling him, anyway? "I don't really remember most of it - I try not to remember it. But this is the first time I've been outside of Baticul since then..."

"I understand. It must bring back a lot of painful memories."

"You could say that." Painful, hell; they were terrifying memories, if he thought about them too long. Luke was almost grateful to see Jade approaching the two of them. It provided an easy way to change the subject. "What is it?" he asked, once Jade was close enough to hear him clearly over the wind.

"I thought it best to inform you that the ship should arrive at St. Binah by nightfall - " Whatever else Jade had been about to say was cut off by the screech of an alarm attached over the door leading into the ship's halls. Luke had to cover his ears against the loud noise; Jade simply looked a bit irritated, much as though he'd stepped in a particularly deep puddle. "Assuming we don't run into any interruptions," he finished mildly. "Perhaps it would be best if the two of you returned to your cabin."

Luke nodded, and lead Ion into the ship as Jade headed for a speaking tube at the other end of the hallway. Luke couldn't hear their exchange, but soon the ship's intercom blared all he needed to know.

"Large swarm of monsters 20 kilometers ahead. All hands, battle stations! Repeat! All hands, battle stations!"

"Come on," Luke said quietly to Ion, as the two of them descended the metal stairway towards the cabins.

Anise and Tear were waiting in the hallway, both with staves drawn; Anise immediately swooped upon her charge, while Tear stepped up beside Luke, handing him the cheagle she'd had scooped up in her other hand. "Do you know what's going on?" she asked.

"Only as much as you do," he replied. "Jade just ordered us down to the cabin."

At that point, the ship shuddered, the floor tilting briefly as the Tartarus came to a stop. Luke heard Jade's voice raised up the stairs - "Bridge! Respond! Bridge!"

"Oh, that can't be good," Anise said behind him. Mieu crawled to Luke's shoulder and quaked with fear.

"I smell ligers," the cheagle whispered.

Before Luke had time to process the comment, the door at the far end of the hallway opened. A pair of Oracle Knights entered, their faces completely hidden by their helmets, and behind them, a massive figure who could only be their commander, just from the way he carried himself. The man, in red and black armor, stood a full head over the soldiers - which put him head and shoulders above Luke, who wasn't particularly tall, and even further above Ion, Tear, and Anise - and carried a massive scythe that was so long, Luke expected it to scrape the ceiling.

Should've gone back to the cabin when we had the chance, Luke thought, putting a hand to his sword. Behind him, he saw Anise step in front of Ion, pulling the strange yellow doll she carried from her shoulders (now what what the purpose of that?) - but before either she or the Oracle Knights could do anything, a fonic arte crossed over Luke's head from the stairway.

Everything happened at once, then - the two Oracle Knights crumpled to the ground under the force of Jade's arte, but their commander didn't, instead swinging his weapon down at the group arrayed in the hallway. Luke ripped his sword from its sheath and managed to parry, though the force of the blow drove him to his knees. The motion of battle stopped there, thankfully, as Jade stepped forward from the rear of the group.

"Impressive," observed the armored man, and Luke had to admit that he doubted the comment was directed at him, halfway to the floor. "But it's time for you to calm down. Now. Colonel Jade Curtiss, Commander of the Third Division of the Malkuth Imperial Forces...Or maybe just, 'Jade the Necromancer.'"

The words caught up with Luke's mind even as Tear echoed them out loud, and he kicked himself for not putting it together sooner. It really would have been stretching coincidence to imagine that there was another Jade in the Malkuth military with enough of the Emperor's trust to carry out such an important mission. But feeling foolish would have to wait until Luke wasn't under the blade of a much more powerful opponent, who seemed to be only putting off killing him in order to banter with Jade.

"Well, well. It seems I'm famous." Did Jade ever miss a chance to be inappropriately casual? "Though my stories have nothing on yours, sir. 'Largo the Black Lion.' One of the Six God-Generals of the Oracle Knights."

Largo chuckled, and the pressure on Luke's weapon decreased slightly. "I've been waiting for a chance to cross blades with you, but unfortunately, right now I must retrieve the Fon Master."

"I'm afraid I can't allow that." Jade's voice was still calm, but Luke could feel the gathering of fonons behind him as the colonel readied an arte. The pressure on Luke's weapon increased in response, Largo's strength slowly pushing him down into the floor.

"Don't move if you want the boy to live," Largo commanded, his gaze flicking away from Jade for the first time to briefly fall on Luke. There was something a little thoughtful about the threat and the way Largo looked at him, but the man looked back at Jade quickly enough that Luke thought he was probably imagining it. He did, however, catch the man palming some device from his belt. "Jade the Necromancer - letting you go now will only mean trouble later."

"Do you think you can kill me by yourself?" Jade asked, casual tone slipping a bit more serious.

"If I seal your fonic artes." Largo tossed the object in his hand past Luke, over Jade's head, where the device cast a cage of light around Jade. Luke took advantage of the distraction to jerk himself out of the immediate path of Largo's weapon, the point of the scythe sliding from his sword to embed itself in the floor where one of Luke's feet had been only a moment before. Luke threw himself up against the wall and out of the way.

He was grateful that he had - whatever that barrier had done to Jade hadn't stopped the man from summoning a spear to his hand, and he took advantage of the opportunity presented by Largo's trapped weapon to dive under the God-General's guard. In a breath, Jade's spear was impaled in a gap in Largo's armor, and blood soon leaked out of the gap.

"Heh," Largo wheezed. "Impressive, that even after having your fon slots sealed..." Whatever he had been about to say didn't make it to his lips - the man keeled into the wall Luke was pressed against and collapsed there. Under all that armor, it was hard to tell if Largo was breathing or not, but with the wound under his ribs, he wouldn't manage long even if he was.

Luke pulled himself away from the wall and sheathed his sword. With his other hand, he reached up to stroke the ears of the cheagle that was quivering against his neck. Another death barely dodged, thanks to Jade's skill and some lucky timing.

"A fon slot seal?" Tear asked, as Jade dismissed his weapon and stepped away from Largo's body.

Behind her, Anise righted the stuffed animal's position on her back. "Wow, Colonel, I'm surprised that didn't knock you out..."

"I'm sure he intended to use it to disable the Fon Master's Daathic artes," Jade replied, his usual vague amusement already back in place. He stepped past their group and towards the stairs leading up to the deck. "Come, now, we'll need to move quickly if we intend to take back the bridge."

"But what about Ion?" Anise said, obviously dismayed. "If the Oracle Knights are after him - "

"Then we'll just have to bring him along."

Anise looked about to continue her protests, but Ion himself cut off whatever she was going to say. "What about your artes, Jade?"

"It will take several months to undo the seal, without a doubt, and we certainly don't have that kind of time to spare," Jade answered, already turning up the stairs. The rest of them followed obediently, even Anise who was clearly displeased with the situation.

As they went, Luke gathered Mieu off his shoulder and handed the cheagle off to the Fon Master. "Here, he'll probably be safer with you." Mieu whined a little and attached himself to the front of Ion's robes. "Worst comes to worst," Luke said to the cheagle, "breathe fire in the face of anyone who tries to touch Ion."

"Mieu... Understood." Mieu gave a single, very serious nod, his ears flapping with the motion. It was enough to make Ion smile, at least, which was all Luke could have asked for.

* * *

"I still can't believe that doll is a weapon," Luke whispered to Tear, as she finished putting healing artes to a slash in his shoulder. The deck of the Tartarus had been occupied by not only Oracle Knights, but also ligers and griffons, the monsters in fact far more prevalent than the humans. As a result, Luke had had more than his share of scratches from fighting their way up to and across the high pathways over the deck, though the only one who hadn't been at all injured was Ion, sandwiched firmly and safely in the middle of the group.

"It is rather unusual," Tear agreed. "Though I suppose having a weapon that passes for harmless is an advantage when it comes to serving as the Fon Master's guardian."

Luke nodded and looked down to the route they were taking to the patch of deck in front of the bridge entrance. There was one guard there, a man who had already been put into a deep sleep by Tear's hymn. "You'd better go help Jade. I can take care of guarding the entrance." And Ionwent unsaid; though the monsters seemed more inclined to ignore the Fon Master than anything else, all of the Oracle Knights had made attempting to capture the boy their priority.

"Right." Tear turned and headed into the bridge after the colonel; the tight space meant that it was a poor fit for melee combat (no doubt an intentional aspect of its design) which meant that Luke, as the only one without fonic artes to supplement his weapon, got the guard duty.

Things were quiet outside the bridge for quite a while; Ion, sitting by the door and mostly hidden from view under an awning unless you were directly across the deck, was tired enough that he was quiet, and thankfully didn't try to resume the conversation they had been having earlier about Luke's kidnapping.

Sure enough, the clear deck didn't last too long. "Ion, get inside and tell the others," Luke said, rising to a standing position to get ready to hold the doors against the small squad of Oracle Knights that was approaching.

As it turned out, that wasn't what he needed to worry about.

"Eclair de Larmes!"

Luke wasn't sure where the woman's voice came from, but he felt the light-based arte well enough. It was enough to drive him to his knees, vision blurring from the bright light of the sixth fonon. Damn, what was keeping Tear and the others in there?

The caster dropped from the same paths above the bridge that Luke's group, and though Luke couldn't see much of her but her heel with his gaze at the ground, he heard the click of a weapon well enough, and felt the press of metal against his skull. His heartbeat vibrated in his chest -

"Wait, Legretta!" Another voice and another pair of feet, dropping from over the bridge doorway. "He's - "

"Is this why you neglected to step in, Ember?" responded the woman. Legretta the Quick - another of the God-Generals. Luke cursed silently. In retrospect, they should have known better than to think that Largo was the only one, with Ion hanging in the balance.

He heard the door open, and a gasp that could have been either Tear or Ion (most likely the latter). Legretta's feet turned as she angled her body that way, but her weapon remained pressed against Luke's head. "Put down your weapons," she commanded.

A series of clangs, one recognizable as Tear's staff, the others probably Anise and Jade likewise dropping their weapons. Luke's back was to them, so he couldn't see, and he didn't dare so much as raise his head to look. The other set of feet in his view shifted.

"Legretta - "

A sigh came from somewhere above Luke's head. "Lock them in a cabin then. I'll secure the bridge." Legretta's weapon lifted from behind Luke's head, but before Luke could raise his head more than a fraction, it was replaced by an unsheathed blade. Still, it was enough for him to see something more of his captors - Legretta's black dress and blond hair as she walked through the Oracle Knights that were taking the rest of his group captive.

Meanwhile, whoever held the sword to Luke's neck had mostly stepped out of his vision. All he'd seen were boots and the tails of a coat, almost artfully tattered. The figure had bent over him, though - Luke could see their shadows in front of him, looking almost like a single person. "Sorry," the voice above him said, before the sword was raised just long enough to come down again, the hilt slamming into the back of Luke's neck and knocking him out cold.


	5. Chapter 5

Notes: Whoops, that took a little longer than I planned. Sorry, folks.

* * *

He came around on a military cot, staring at the underside of another bunk. He'd barely opened his eyes before someone grabbed onto his arm and squeezed.

"Luke! You're awake!" Anise's good cheer was far too close to his ear, especially supplemented as it was by Mieu's voice -

"Master! Thank goodness!"

Luke blinked, then shoved them both away from him with his arm. (He had to almost shake it to get it entirely free of Anise's grip; her fingers were stronger than some of the clamps Guy had stored in the fontech tools under his bed.) Anise tumbled backward, past Tear who had also been standing at Luke's bedside. The hint of Seventh Fonons around her at least explained why he had woken up so easily, and with a pain-free head.

The cell was grey and sparse; Luke occupied the only bed, and there were a few chains scattered across the floor, though thankfully none of them were attached to the occupants. The colonel was the only one in the room not hanging around Luke's bed; he was standing against the far wall instead, watching them and looking almost bored with the proceedings.

Luke swung his feet over the side of the bed and stood up. So, he'd gone from captured by Malkuth, to helping them, to captured by Oracle Knights. This misadventure just kept getting better and better. "Where's Ion?" he asked.

"Gloomietta took him," Anise muttered under her breath. Her expression looked like a pout, but the sound of her voice said that her anger was more than a cute act. Her hands were shaking slightly where she gripped the hem of her uniform.

It was an answer that didn't help Luke in the slightest. "Who?"

"Arietta the Wild," Tear clarified. "She came for Ion not long after we were thrown in here."

"Another God-General?" Luke said, with a groan. "How many of them are we going to have to deal with? That's three already..."

"Four," Anise corrected him. "It was Ember the Blazing who knocked you out." She didn't meet his eyes as she said it, instead keeping her gaze locked on her hands.

"It's likely that all six of them were sent on this mission," Jade said. "Which complicates our escape plans quite a bit."

Luke looked up, shock giving way to a small, hopeful smile in his expression. "You're planning to..."

"Of course." Jade's smile didn't shift, but his eyes glittered dangerously for a moment. "I still intend to complete my mission. I won't allow the lives lost on this ship to go to waste."

A bit surprised by the vehemence, Luke could only nod. So long as their interests aligned, Jade was a powerful ally, and right now Luke's first interest was getting off this ship.

"Then, if you're all prepared..." Jade didn't give them a chance to respond before getting up from his chair and walking over to the door - or rather, where the door had been, because the entrance was now open to the hallway except for the bars. Luke couldn't see a guard, however.

Jade dug something out of his pocket and flung it at the bars - the object went between them, and the bars disengaged, sliding quickly down into the floor. Jade didn't even wait for them to fall all the way before racing out into the hallway, throwing down the cover on the communication tube across from the door.

"By my name as Necromancer, heed my command - initiate emergency plan 'Corpse Hunt.'"

The power flickered out over their heads, and the low sound of the ship came to an abrupt halt. Luke followed Jade out into the hallway, Anise on his heels and Tear bringing the rear.

"That should keep them for a while," Jade said, folding his hands behind his back. "We'll have to open the doors manually, but I'm sure you kids can handle that." With that, the man walked off, Tear following him. Mieu hopped up to cling to Luke's pant leg, and Luke lifted the cheagle the rest of the way to his shoulder.

"Mieuuu," the cheagle whined quietly. "I hope there aren't really going to be corpses hunting us."

"It's just a shutdown command," Luke reassured him, with a slightly awkward scratch of the cheagle's ear. "I think he likes playing up the role."

Behind them, Anise giggled. "Yep, that's the colonel, all right."

* * *

Their weapons and the rest of their gear, thankfully, was in a chest not too far away. They also managed to loot a few gels from some of the supplies; might as well keep them out of the hands of the Oracle Knights, after all. Luke got pressured into moving crates around, though Anise did eventually take pity and help him, showing some surprising strength for someone her size.

They were now mostly hidden behind a group of those crates, all of them inspecting the "surprise" that Jade had half-promised would lead to their escape.

"Why," Luke hissed, "do you even have a stash of gunpowder explosives on board? I thought the Tartarus had exclusively fonic weapons." That was the standard for Malkuth vessels; it was Kimlasca that made extensive use of gunpowder cannons.

"The crate was smuggled on board by some of the soldiers," Jade clarified. "No doubt they were intending to sell it for a profit... Ah, but any investigation is pointless now. Mieu, if you would?"

"Yes, sir!" The cheagle jumped off Luke's shoulder and, without giving the rest of them time to dive for cover, shot a small fireball at the crate. The fire caught and burned for a moment on the wood before reaching the powder inside - Luke clapped his hands over his ears just in time to muffled the worst of the explosion, which blew out a part of the Tartarus' wall in addition to sending splintered bits of the crate everywhere.

"Ugh, you could have at least waited for us to take cover!" Anise exclaimed, stamping her foot and putting her hands on her hips to glare at Mieu, who predictably cowered before her for a moment before darting behind Luke's ankles with a squeak.

"Well, no harm done," Jade said, dusting his hands, as though he wasn't the one who had ultimately ordered Mieu to take the shot. Then again, trying to reprimand him was entirely useless anyway. The colonel stepped over a charred plank to examine the hole. "This should do well enough, though it will be a bit of a squeeze."

"Where does it let out?" Tear asked, staring down at the hole. "I wouldn't want to just fall out of the side of the ship after climbing through." Even with the ship parked, they were still fairly high off the ground. Luke thought he could probably jump the distance, .but he was less sure about the others, especially Tear in her heels.

"One of the gunning platforms should be right on the other side," Jade said. "Anise, you're the smallest - if you have trouble fitting through, I imagine the rest of us won't stand a chance."

"You just don't want to go first," the Fon Master Guardian grumbled, as she bent to her knees and crawled through the opening.

* * *

"Why did they take Ion off the ship anyway?" Anise whispered up from her position tucked against the doorframe below Luke, her puppet already in her hands. Luke shrugged and leaned over her, straining to see the group approaching. Ion was being flanked by a pair of Oracle Knights in helmets as the group approached the ship, and the figure leading the party hid as much or more of his face in a mask.

"Which one is that?" Luke muttered angrily, jerking his thumb at what could only be another God-General.

"Sync the Tempest," Tear answered, crouched below Jade on the other side of the doorway. The colonel, leaning above her with his spear already in hand, adjusted his glasses with a sigh.

"My, seems they're expecting us, if they're bringing out the big guns..."

Luke could only assume that meant Sync was far stronger than he looked; as it was, the God-General was skinny and barely taller than Ion (if at all) and looked mostly like a teenager trying his hardest to look threatening. He didn't say so, however, as one of the soldiers approached the ship to lower the emergency hatch. First the ramp, then the hatch would start to slide open from his and Anise's side.

As soon as it was open far enough, the two of them charged forward, Anise's doll leading the way and providing a shield as Luke followed. One sweep of the thing's arm threw one of the soldiers to the side - but then it encountered Sync, who punched into the doll with a burst of fonons. Luke, recognizing the danger, was only just able to roll out of the way as Anise and her doll were thrown back onto the ramp behind him.

Tear's hymn hung in the air as Jade leapt over the mess that was now Anise and her weapon, pursuing Sync with his spear as the God-General jumped back and tried to counter with a high kick. Luke took the opportunity to eliminate the soldier still recovering from the combination of Anise's blow and the hymn.

His blade took the second soldier in the gut while Jade and a remounted Anise pinned down Sync, the arms of the puppet restricting Sync's movements just enough to let Jade put a spear to his throat. Neither party moved a moment, until Sync tipped his head to the side, just enough away from the blade that Luke could see a tiny bit of his chin.

"Impressive." Sync's voice was boyish and snide, even if he was objectively paying them a compliment. "I should have known better than to count you out, Necromancer, even if Largo got a fon slot seal on you."

"You should have," Jade agreed in a cheerful tone. "Now, what are we to do with you? I can't exactly tell you to drop your weapons." Sync's hands were raised in a placating gesture, palms outward, but that didn't do much to convince anyone that his threat level was decreased. "Perhaps I ought to just cut them off - "

A bolt of fonic light came out of the sky, an arte cast from onboard the ship. Luke, assisting Tear down the steps with Ion coming from his wooded refuge to join them, found himself kicked to the side by a massive liger that bounded down the steps. Tear was thrown with him, and landed on top of him in a tangle of feet and hair. The liger stopped between the group and Ion, cutting off the Fon Master's return.

Sync, taking advantage of the confusion, thrust his raised palms forward and expelled a burst of fonons practically into Jade's chest. The signature red fonons and concussive force marked it as a modified version of the Raging Blast arte Luke had learned from Van, though with much more power behind it - it knocked Jade to the ground and gave Sync enough room to maneuver, and with a kick at Anise's head and a flip, he was in a defensive posture with his back to the liger.

The beast's rider slid down next to her fellow God-General - Arietta was even less impressive looking, a pink-haired, small girl with her face half-hidden by the stuffed doll she clutched to her chest. Sync barely looked at her as he spoke. "What's the status of the Tartarus?"

"It's still inoperable," Arietta replied, almost too softly for Luke to hear, muffled as it was by her doll. "I was only able to get this far because my friend tore open the wall."

"Hmph. I guess they're good for something." The liger growled a little, though whether it was at Sync's comment or at Luke starting to rise out of his fallen position was impossible to tell. Luke still opted to stop moving. "We'll put them in separate cells this time - "

Whatever Sync had been about to say was cut off by the figure diving off the back of the Tartarus and diving behind the liger, sprinting past its tail and the two startled God-Generals. Sync immediately attempted to take off in pursuit, but was promptly met by the cloth block of Anise's puppet. Almost as quickly, Jade snapped up from his position on the ground and thrust his spear at Arietta's throat. That, at least, stilled the liger as well as Sync.

Good timing, Guy, Luke thought as he got to his feet and took over pointing a blade at Arietta. She just stared at him over the sword, her doll lifted high enough to bump into it. It made her look more intensely childish than even Anise, though surely Arietta had to be several years the other girl's senior.

"Why don't you go back to the Tartarus," Jade said to the fuming Sync, in a tone that made it more than a suggestion. Sync looked between the group of them, clearly calculating his odds beneath his mask - but the calculation apparently didn't work out in his favor, because he turned and stalked off up the ramp. "You next," Jade said to Arietta. "Actually, have your monster go first."

Amazingly, Arietta's eyes went to Ion, who was on his feet again but still taking cover from the situation behind Guy. "Fon Master...I..."

"Please do as he says, Arietta," Ion said gently, and it was only at that point that she nodded. Arietta whistled quietly, the sound barely audible to Luke even standing right beside her, but it was apparently more than enough for her liger to hear. The creature's ears lifted towards her before it too marched up the ramp. Looking at it standing beside Sync, Luke thought that the liger was, in fact, the one he'd rather have to take on in a fight.

Arietta meekly followed as Jade went over to the ramp's control panel, no doubt to seal the hatch after the God-Generals and buy their group a little time to make their escape. Luke sighed and sheathed his blade, walking over to where Guy and Ion were standing.

"You certainly didn't waste time getting here," he said to his servant, feeling the most relaxed he had in days.

"You're not complaining, are you?" Guy answered back with a teasing grin. Luke shook his head.

"Under any other circumstances I'd demand to know how the hell you got here so fast in the first place, but I'll take what I can get."

"I take it you two know each other," Tear said, walking up behind them with Mieu gathered up in her arms. She must have retrieved the cheagle while the rest of them were watching the God-Generals go up the ramp. Anise - her doll back to its normal size and position - and Jade trailed after her.

"Ah, right." Guy rubbed at the back of his head, a gesture that usually meant he was nervous (or at least thought it was appropriate to act nervous). "I'm Guy - I'm a servant at Duke Fabre's manor, though I'm mostly Luke's unofficial manservant."

"If you came all the way here from Baticul, you certainly did make good time," Jade observed, moving to shake Guy's hand. "An example we could all stand to follow," the colonel continued, stepping back and leaving Ion room to take his place. "The Tartarus will easily outpace us once it's functional again, so we should make the best use of our head start."

It was probably by virtue of Jade's voice distracting him that Luke didn't realize what was happening until too late, as Tear approached Guy with her hand extended. "Wait, Tear..."

Guy stepped back. Tear stepped forward. Guy stepped back again, now with a look of slight alarm. Tear stepped towards him again, now looking a bit concerned, and at that point Luke stepped between them and folded his hand over Tear's. "Guy doesn't deal well with women," he explained in a low tone of voice that could be easily heard by the rest of the group.

"Oh, it can't be that bad," Anise said, her voice slightly sing-song, and she leapt at Guy's waist, wrapping her arms around him in a hug. Guy immediately shrieked, his knees wobbling as he tried to push her off while touching her as little as possible. Luke stepped over and grabbed Anise by the collar, dragging her off Guy and a few feet away. Guy remained frozen where he was, shaking violently.

"That looks more like a phobia," Jade observed, as Luke dropped Anise on the ground. "I trust it won't cause problems?"

"Just... Don't touch me..." Guy said, his voice wavering. Luke thought the colonel's comment was mostly directed at Anise, but he opted to keep that to himself. From the way she stuck her tongue out at Jade's back as they started to walk, it seemed that the message had been received; whether she intended to be obedient to it was a very different matter.

Luke would just have to keep an eye on her.

* * *

They ignored all signs of civilization to make time southward, and camped only once everyone save Jade was exhausted, in the bush far from the side of the road. Ion had fallen asleep long since, and was carried alternately by Luke, Guy, and Anise's puppet.

The next day was more of the same, but luckily the only person they encountered on the road was a passing merchant, who told them that the bridge to Akzeriuth in the south was out of commission. That settled their route, at least - along the road to the ford across the Fubras River, and from their south to the border crossing at Kaitzur.

No one was particularly happy about it, but none were so displeased as Anise, who complained virtually the entire crossing about what the water would do to her clothes, and her doll, and Ion's health, and her hair... Luke contented himself with rolling his eyes and asking Guy (who, it turned out, knew a surprising amount of geography) why people in Malkuth hated bridges.

The trip south was almost boringly peaceful, until they were about two hour's walk outside of Kaitzur. It was at that point that the Tartarus became visible, on the near side of the border crossing. Jade was bringing up the rear as the rest of them came to a stop in the tiny bit of cover there was on the plains, and the colonel made a small tsk of displeasure.

"I see they're getting no use out of our crossing permit, at least. Anise, I don't suppose you managed to grab the passports on your way out of the cabin?"

The girl's groan was all the answer any of them needed. Guy gave an awkward laugh. "So none of us have passports, then? That's going to make it hard to get across the border..."

Great. Luke turned his attention back towards the town, and the crossing in the center of it. So close to getting home - less than a week's journey - and yet he was up against the insurmountable obstacle of his own nation's security. Jade could probably talk them through the Malkuth half of the crossing, if it came down to that, but it was doubtful that there was anyone on the Kimlascan side who would recognize him.

"I'm surprised we haven't run into Dorian General Grants yet," Guy continued, being too careful to not look at Tear out of the corner of his eye. Luke had explained what he knew of the situation on the road, but Guy hadn't had any more ideas on why Tear was trying to kill her brother than he did. "He's got some passports for Luke and I, and we could probably bribe our way across if we could establish Luke's identity..."

"Bribes?" That was enough to make Anise lift her head again, her eyes sparkling.

"Political favors from my family, not money," Luke said, cutting off her fantasy, which prompted her to pout at him.

"Especially valuable for military officers looking to make a name for themselves, no doubt," Jade said, and Luke nodded.

"We may as well rest for a bit," Tear said, her gaze still on the Tartarus in the distance. "Passports or not, we won't be getting through the border while the God-Generals are there."

With sounds of agreement, most of the group took seats in a rough semicircle facing the town. Only Jade, who never seemed to get tired, and Mieu, who was short enough that sitting or standing didn't make a difference in how visible he was, remained on their feet. The cheagle wandered around between Luke and Ion, munching on grass and occasionally getting his ears scratched by the Fon Master.

"It won't be long now until you get home," Guy said to Luke, trying to cheer him "Try not to worry so much, okay?"

Luke didn't answer, instead laying out flat on his back to stare up at the sky. The seasons weren't much different here in southern Rugnica from those in Baticul, but even though it was still winter, the air was impressively dry compared to the humid city. No wonder there weren't nearly as many farms here; no doubt Kaitzur ran off wells, far from the river as it was. Thinking about it was a pleasant distraction from the ominous feelings in his chest, the constant worry that he wouldn't be able to get home again.

"It looks as though our friends are leaving," Jade said, which prompted Luke into sitting back up to watch the Tartarus start to rumble along towards the sea. "They'll have quite a time taking to the ocean from here, but I imagine they'll manage. They crossed the river, after all."

"As long as they're out of our way," Luke said as he stood up, dusting dirt off his clothes and pulling a piece of grass out of his hair.

"There's an inn on the Malkuth side of the border, isn't there?" Ion said as he stood, a little less steadily than the rest of them. Even with the rest, it was late afternoon, and surely he was tired by now. "Let's rest there for tonight, and worry about the crossing in the morning."

"An inn, with a real bed..." Anise said longingly. Her glazed-over eyes only lasted a moment, though, before she took off down the road. "Come on!" she said, turning to face the rest of them when they didn't immediately follow her. "I want a shower! Preferably before you people and your long hair take all the hot water."

"It's actually Guy you have to worry about," Luke commented, diverting Anise's gaze from himself and Tear towards the blond. (Honestly, Luke's hair was only barely longer than Jade's!) "He uses more hot water than most of the nobles I know."

"Luke! I thought you were on my side!" Guy squeaked, as Anise made a beeline for him again. The girl chased him around Ion for a circle or two before Tear stepped between them, giving Anise a disapproving look and Guy enough of a head start to use Luke as a more effective shield.

"Let's move along," Tear said sternly, and that, at least for now, made Anise give up on the matter and lead the way off down the road again. Luke gave Guy's shoulder a slight calming squeeze before following after her. Anise wasn't the only one eager to sleep in a real bed.


	6. Chapter 6

Minor content warning for panic attacks, in this and the next few proceeding chapters.

* * *

The sheets were rough and the mattress was hard, but it was softer than the ground and smoother than the grass of the plains, so almost as soon as he crawled into bed, Luke was asleep solidly until well after dawn. He only awoke when Mieu began bouncing impatiently on his pillow, high-pitched voice right next to his head.

"Master! Get up! Everyone else is already awake!"

"Ugh..." Luke lifted his head and sat up - sure enough, Guy and Jade had already vacated the room. It wasn't as though Luke was a late riser, even - but when his companions were almost all military personnel, he looked lazy in comparison. Mieu, thankfully, stopped bouncing the bed at that point, and instead crawled into Luke's lap while the redhead fought the bare minimum of tangles out of his hair and tied it back again. By the time he was done, the cheagle was gently snoozing across his knee, and Luke couldn't help being a little irritated that the one awakening him had gone right back to sleep.

He gathered Mieu into his arms and headed out into the main hall of the inn, where the rest of the group was assembled around a breakfast table. Anise, her mouth stuffed with a toasted bun, waved furiously at him, as though he could possibly miss them; there had only been two other guests at the inn, neither of whom was visible in the dining room.

"Luuuuuuke," she crooned after swallowing, gesturing him down to the chair next to her (the only one left at the table, though, thankfully, it was between her and Guy, so at least Luke could run interference in that regard). As soon as he sat down, she clamped onto the arm that wasn't transferring Mieu to the middle of the table. "Look at all this food. Isn't it delicious?"

Luke just stared down at her for a moment before twisting his arm out of her grip to butter a muffin. It did look and smell delicious, after a week of nothing but trail food, but that didn't explain Anise's behaviour. Unless... "Don't tell me you're fishing for compliments," he said, reaching for the jam.

"What, me?" Anise gave him a too-sweet innocent look. "Well, maybe a little... I don't get many chances to practice cooking for my future husband, you know!"

Luke set the knife down on the edge of his plate. Was that what this was all about? Then again, he remembered the hungry look she'd given him on the Tartarus as soon as she found out he was nobility. "I'm engaged," he said after a bite of the muffin. "Happily engaged."

"Too damn happily if you ask me," Guy added, passing Luke a cup of tea. "It's hard to pry you and Princess Natalia off each other, sometimes."

Anise growled quietly and retreated to her own seat - it looked like Luke's guess had been right on, then. "I guess you wouldn't need a wife to cook anyway, with all the servants you've got." The whole time she said it, her eyes moving from Guy to the teacup in Luke's hand.

"Even if we didn't, there's no competing with Natalia," Luke told her, trying and failing to hide his smile in his teacup while Anise looked disappointed. "It'd just be unfair to her. You can at least manage cold cereal."

Guy snorted into his eggs. "She really is that bad, huh?"

"Why do you think I'm always the one making Mother's birthday sweets?" Luke countered, gesturing at the sausage plate (which Ion passed him over Anise's incredulous look). "That's a risk I just can't take."

"Now that we're all here," Jade said, putting an end to the chatter, "I think it's about time we address the issue of crossing the border."

"The Colonel's right," Tear said. Mieu wandered across the table to sit between her and Ion - the two most likely to scratch his ears or give him a treat of a spoonful of jam - and sure enough, Tear's attention was diverted to stroking his ears after she spoke.

"What were you able to find out, Jade?" Ion asked. Luke couldn't really be surprised that the colonel had gotten an early start on information gathering.

"Since we have the letter from his Majesty and I'm fairly well known," Jade began, "The Malkuth side is willing to allow us to pass through without passports. It's the Kimlascan side that's the problem; the commander of the unit is down at the port, so we can't even open negotiations for the crossing."

"Great," Luke mumbled sarcastically around a mouth full of sausage, manners be damned.

"On the bright side, he's a member of the nobility," Jade continued with obnoxious cheerfulness. "So when he does come up to the checkpoint, he's more likely to recognize you."

Luke just grunted in response, and next to him, Anise slumped her head so far forward that it nearly wound up in her plate. "So you're saying we're stuck?" she said, her displeasure as obvious as Luke's.

"I'm surprised General Grants hasn't passed through yet," Guy said, ignoring the dirty look Tear shot him at the mention of her brother. "He was going to look around Chesedonia first, and come here if he didn't find Luke. And you're obviously not there for him to find, so..."

The thought made Luke brighten with a bit of optimism. "He might still arrive soon," he said.

"It would certainly expedite things if he did," Jade said, reaching out for the lone mug of coffee on the table. Tear didn't look pleased at the idea, even going so far as to drop her hand away from Mieu's ears and into her lap. The cheagle made a small squeak of complaint, until Ion slid a plate with a dribble of jam in front of his nose, and then the cheagle was eagerly lapping it clean while the rest of them finished their breakfast.

* * *

The thing about Kaitzur was that, aside from the checkpoint, there was nothing to do in the town. And few enough people passed through the checkpoint that even watching the road had little to nothing of interest. Luke had known Kaitzur was considered a backwater post for Kimlasca, even with the rising border tensions, and it seemed that it wasn't much different here on the Malkuth side.

He sat with Anise, Ion, and Mieu watching the border crossing anyway, because there was hardly any better thing to do. Anise at least had something to occupy her fingers, stitching up holes in her doll. Luke got the distinct impression that it was a regular occurrence.

Shortly before lunch, Mieu lifted his head from where he'd been munching a patch of dried grass, his ears twitching. "Master, look! Someone's coming!" Luke looked up, and immediately vaulted off the bench towards the middle of the road where he couldn't possibly be missed.

"Master Van!"

The man came to a stop in front of Luke, his smile wide. "Luke! I didn't expect to find you so quickly. And Fon Master Ion, as well," he added, with a glance at Anise and Ion trailing after Luke, Mieu in Ion's arms.

"Guy beat you to it," Luke said, unable to keep the smile out of his voice. "By a couple days, actually."

Van's eyes sparkled for a moment with amusement. "You're lucky to have such capable people in your household, Luke. Though I suppose I should be regretting not giving him the passports. How long have you been stuck here at the border?"

"Only since last night," Luke replied, and now that escape from Malkuth was at hand, it didn't seem so very long at all. Van just nodded, before turning his attention to Ion, who looked a little sheepish as Mieu crawled up to sit on his shoulder.

"And it's a pleasant surprise to find you here, Fon Master," Van said, with the same kind of warm tone to his voice, though his expression shifted to something a little more professionally neutral. "I was quite concerned when I heard you'd vanished from Daath."

"I'm sorry, Van," Ion said, his head bowed. "I took action without consulting anyone - I didn't intend to cause so much trouble for you." Beside him, Anise also looked appropriately regretful, which Luke knew was an act. It made him unsure if the Fon Master's apology was genuine, or if Ion was simply that much better of an actor than his guardian.

"It's no matter," Van said. "Though I would appreciate being filled in on what's happened up to now."

"Then allow me to explain," came Jade's voice from somewhere behind Luke's shoulder. The group all turned towards the approaching colonel, who had Guy trailing after him. Tear was nowhere to be seen, which was probably for the better, at least for the moment. "Though it might be better if we took this discussion to the inn," Jade added, adjusting his glasses and glancing in that direction.

"That's a good idea," Anise cut in, the first time she'd spoken since Van arrived. "You should get out of the sun anyway, Ion." The Fon Master simply nodded, which seemed to settle the matter.

As the group headed down the street, Luke took the chance to catch Van's attention a little more privately. "Master, you ought to know - Tear's still travelling with us." It wouldn't do to have Van walk into the inn unprepared and have his sister immediately point a knife at his throat.

Van sighed just slightly, looking more tired than Luke had ever seen him, a different kind of tired than after a long day of training. "Don't concern yourself with it, Luke. I'll find some time to speak to her privately on the matter. I'm certain there's just been some misunderstanding on her part."

"I thought it best if you knew," Luke said. "I don't think she'll try anything until at least after we're back in Baticul. She seems to view this as her fault." 'This' being Luke's presence on this side of the border, as indicated by a loose gesture.

"She has always been responsible," was Van's only reply, sounding a bit distracted as they entered the inn. Luke was perfectly willing to let the matter drop there, at least for the time being. It wasn't Van's fault that his sister had gotten some strange idea in her head that he was a traitor.

* * *

Tear didn't appear until midway through the discussion with Van about the letter and the God-Generals, and when she did, she simply looked at him sourly and sat down without a word, ignoring even Mieu trying to coax her into petting him. She remained there, looking stern and seemingly daring anyone to bring up the matter, as Van explained that the God-Generals has been working under the Grand Maestro, Mohs (which surprised Luke not in the least; he'd always gotten the impression that Mohs was as slimy as the dredge out of the port).

Hearing her brother speak against Mohs, however, was seemingly the breaking point for Tear. "Are you saying you have nothing to do with this?" she broke in, cutting off Jade (who had been attempting to turn the conversation towards avoiding the God-Generals moving forward).

"No, I must take some responsibility. They are my subordinates, after all. I have no excuse for not being aware of their actions." Van's reply didn't seem to satisfy Tear much. "However, there is little I can do about the matter from here, and I promised Luke's parents that I would return him safely to Baticul before anything else."

"We need to go to Baticul ourselves, so that works out!" Anise said brightly, and that too had little to no effect on Tear. "I mean, I'd really appreciate your help keeping the God-Generals away from Ion, Commandant," the girl continued, schooling herself into somewhat more formal behaviour. "If you're going to be coming along anyway."

"Another sword arm would always be appreciated," Jade added, "Especially one as skilled as yours."

"Is that okay, Tear?" Guy asked, giving voice to what they were all hesitant to ask. She didn't look at him. "You can at least put aside whatever it is until we get back to Baticul, right?"

"I suppose so," she said finally, and Luke tried to not show his relief too much. At least that would be one thing he wouldn't have to worry about for the rest of the trip. With any luck, Tear would see that she'd been wrong about Van in that time, and the two of them could put the whole thing behind them soon.

"Then we should prepare for the crossing," Jade said, returning them to business with his usual vigor. "I understand you're bearing some extra passports, Dorian General."

"Ah, yes." Van rummaged in the pockets built into the inside of his tabard before withdrawing a small bundle of carefully folded documents. He handed the first to Luke, the second to Guy, and set the remainder in the center of the table. "I was able to convince Duke Fabre to entrust me with a few extras, in case anyone else of interest was to be found. There should be just enough for all of you."

"Wow, what luck!" Anise exclaimed, taking one of the temporary passports off the table and opening it so she could scrawl in her name. The rest of the group each took one in turn.

"I'll go ahead to the port, and inform Count Almandine that you'll be arriving soon," Van said, standing up and straightening his uniform slightly. "I'll meet you there."

"See you soon," Luke said with a smile, and Van glanced his way briefly with a smile in return, before heading out the door. Leaving the others to fiddle with the passports, Luke plucked Mieu from his place beside Tear and went to help Guy pack.

* * *

With the addition of passports, the actual crossing of the border was almost unnoteworthy. The Malkuth side barely glanced at them; they recognized Jade from his information gathering well enough, after all. The Kimlascan side was a little more thorough, but Duke Fabre's signature was enough to carry them through, with little bows of respect that felt almost foreign to Luke after so long outside his own country. The group reached the port shortly after nightfall and headed immediately to the inn. Count Almandine wouldn't be seeing them until the next day, anyway, though Luke was sure he was obligated to put in an appearance with the man before he left.

He knew it was all part of his station, and normally he wouldn't have minded. But right then, it was ridiculously tedious, and the last thing he wanted to do was stay in the port another moment. The trip to Baticul would already be four days, with a night spent in Chesedonia in the middle.

The next morning, however, Luke didn't awake to prepare for a noble luncheon. He woke up, instead, to screaming from the port and the rattle of soldiers in the streets.

Immediately, he sat up and threw the covers off his legs. Jade was already on his way out the door, and Luke and Guy followed practically as soon as they got their shoes on and grabbed their weapons (and cheagle, in Luke's case). They met the rest of their group in the front of the inn - sans Van, who had proceeded ahead of them - and hurried after a group of Kimlascan guards to the port.

The place was in chaos. Luke almost wished he were surprised to recognize the monsters flying overhead, occasionally dropping firebombs into nearby buildings. Fortunately few people other than the soldiers lived in the Kaitzur region, and the roofs of the buildings nearer the port were metal rather than anything that would catch alight, but that didn't do much to minimize the havoc.

The ship at the port, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. It was what caught Luke's attention immediately when they turned the corner onto the docks - the engines of the ferry blazingly alight, smoke rising up into the sea breeze.

The second thing that caught his attention was a familiar voice. Luke wrenched his gaze from the burning ship towards where Van had cornered Arietta the Wild at the end of a dock. "Arietta! Who authorized this?"

Anise darted up on Van's heels, pointing her finger accusingly at Arietta. "I knew it was you, Gloomietta! Why are you always causing trouble for people?"

"I am not gloomy!" Arietta protested, ignoring Van's question completely as the man himself turned to see the new arrivals. In spite of the immaturity of her voice, the look she was giving Anise was as vicious as anything. "You're the one who's awful, Anise! You shouldn't be letting these murderers anywhere near Ion!"

"Murderers?" Jade asked, pointedly looking over the group and then shrugging mildly. "While that certainly applies to me, you can hardly consider the rest of these children to be such."

"You're wrong!" Arietta practically shrieked, a note in her voice making Luke flinch and clap his hands over his ears. Somewhere in the burning port, a liger roared. "You killed Mommy!"

"Mommy?" Luke echoed quietly in confusion to Guy, who just shrugged as much as he could with a hand prepared to draw his sword.

Ion spoke up from behind them, though Luke didn't think the Fon Master would have been able to hear the comment in the chaos. "Arietta was raised by ligers, but... Oh no..." The dawning realization in Ion's voice was a great deal less shocked than Luke's thoughts were at that moment.

"Arietta!" Van snapped again, cutting the discussion to an end. "Why did you unleash your monsters on the ship?"

"Commandant..." Arietta, seemingly cowed, ducked her face into her doll. "I'm sorry. Ember asked me to come here..."

"What?" Was Van's incredulous response, but that was all he got the chance to say before having to throw himself to the ground (as did everyone save Ion and Anise, small enough to merely duck), as Arietta whistled and a griffon swooped low over them towards her. When Luke was back on his feet, Arietta had already taken to the air, showing surprising strength as she clung to the griffon's talon with only one arm (the other still clamped around her doll).

"I've taken the engineer who can repair the ship," she said from above them, sounding a bit more confident. "If you want him back, Luke and Ion have to come to Choral Castle. If they don't come... My friends will kill him..."

With a massive flap of the griffon's wings, Arietta was borne off away from the port, but by then her words had lodged in Luke's mind and sent weakness into his knees. Choral Castle. Why? Why there, of all places, of all the hells they could have demanded? The rest of the world faded out of his awareness, speaking voices of those around him and the movements of soldiers attempting to put out the ship fire all going unnoticed as he swayed on his feet.

Choral Castle. The place where Van had found him, had saved him from the kidnapping. The place where...

"Luke." It wasn't so much the voice that made him look up - he didn't even recognize it at first - so much as Van's hand on his shoulder. "It's alright. There's no need for you to go. Wait at the border for the other ferry to return. I'll take care of Arietta."

He had never been so grateful in his life. The relief that oozed out of Luke had him nearly swaying again, Van's grip still on his shoulder the only thing holding him up. "Thank you," he said quietly.

"But that means we'll be ignoring Arietta's demands," Ion protested lightly. Luke nearly spun and snapped at him - but it wasn't Ion's fault. He didn't understand. He might have been "kidnapped" on the Tartarus, but Luke couldn't imagine Arietta allowing Ion to be treated badly, not with the way she seemed to defer to him and care for him even over Van. No, Ion couldn't understand.

"Isn't preventing the war most important now?" Van said in response to Ion. "Return to the border; you'll be safer there until the next ship comes. All of the soldiers here will be busy with cleaning up this mess."

Ion sighed, but, after a glance at Luke, didn't argue further. As for Luke, he barely restrained protest when Van's hand left his shoulder. "I'll see you soon," Van said with a reassuring smile, and Luke could only nod, feeling like he really should have toppled to the ground at some point in the last... Ten minutes? Fifteen? He had no way of knowing.

Fortunately, even as Van turned away, Guy was at Luke's shoulder with another supportive hand, though this one only squeezed briefly before falling away. "Don't worry, Luke. We'll get this all sorted out and be underway before you know it. Let's head back to the inn at the border and you can get some rest."

Stiffly, Luke nodded. "Yeah... Yeah, let's go." He got the distinct sense that everyone else was watching him, but he didn't care. If there had been a military bunk around the corner, he would have thrown himself into it. The idea of going all the way back to the border was torture, even though he knew it really was the safer place. If the God-Generals decided that he and Ion weren't coming, they might... No, definitely safer in the midst of the Kaitzur border town, with a large guard of Kimlascan soldiers between him and any trouble.

As they headed down the streets, though, they were waylaid by a group of dockworkers, their heads bowed in supplication. "Fon Master Ion! Please, wait!"

Anise immediately stood between the group and Ion. "What business do you have with the Fon Master?" she demanded. Luke was just glad that, for once, the people of his country weren't turning to him. It made him feel dirty and selfish, but he just... couldn't.

"Please, Fon Master," the man in the lead begged, as Luke had practically known he would. "You have to save the Chief!"

"He's a devout follower of the Order," said one of the men behind the first. "He was so relieved when his birth Score this year said that calamity would be avoided."

"He has a family back in Baticul," added another. "Please, don't abandon him!"

"...All right," Ion said. "I will do all I can."

"Thank you," said one of the men, another's "Thank you so much," on its heels. No one in the group around Ion moved as the workmen walked off, but as soon as they were out of earshot, Jade turned towards Luke.

"You didn't entirely think that through, Fon Master," he said, all his usual false cheer, making Luke want to strangle him. "You're not the only one Arietta demanded, after all."

As one, the rest of the group turned towards Luke as well. His hands started shaking again. "If we abandon one the Score has foretold will be saved from calamity, we will be ignoring the Score," Tear said, as though it was an argument that held any meaning to Luke at the moment. He was, perhaps unusually for royalty, hardly a man of faith at the best of times.

Right now, he wanted to scream at her, Damn the Score! Just forget it! I can't go back there! But he couldn't. He couldn't risk the life of one of his people because of his own stupid fear. His kidnappers weren't in Choral Castle any longer. There was no reason to worry.

Except about whatever God-Generals might be waiting for them, but in comparison, they seemed like kittens, vicious and sharp-clawed but unable to do any real harm. Luke gave a long exhale, while everyone else watched him with anticipation.

"Let's go," he said, starting off down the road, amazed that his voice didn't shatter on the words. "We don't have any time to waste."


	7. Chapter 7

Two chapters in less than a month? Trust me, I'm as surprised as you are.

* * *

Almost immediately, it seemed, Luke regretted his decision. Choral Castle was an even longer walk than to the border crossing, and he spent the whole time quiet, tripping over his own feet, and shaking. It was clear that his condition made the others think that he wouldn't be of much help in fights on the road, but the truth was actually to the contrary - brief encounters with monsters and bandits gave him something else to focus on, for a little while, and he threw himself into the fights with perhaps too much relish, judging from how often he was the recipient of Tear's healing artes.

And then they were at the gates. In spite of his dread, Luke didn't really have clear memories of most of the place, including the front door. So even knowing the castle had been abandoned for years, he was as surprised as the rest at the state of the entry with its crumbling stone arches.

"It's really a mess," Guy was saying behind him. "I'm surprised House Fabre hasn't sent someone to clean it up once in a while."

"Do you think there's ghosts?" Anise asked loudly. Luke rolled his eyes slightly. Ghosts were the least of the things he was worried about.

"I hope not," Tear said quietly, after a brief hesitation. Jade stepped past her, his eyes on the path that veered around a fallen hunk of arch.

"At the very least, there's the God-Generals inside," he said. "They weren't especially careful in hiding their tracks."

And just like that, Luke was shaking again. He forced his way past Jade and marched down the path to the doors, which he flung inwards as soon as he reached them -

And immediately found himself face to face with an odd, fat statue. He had just long enough to think That's odd, why would they put a statue directly in the entry door? before the thing spun on its base, its long, extended arms slapping him in the face and knocking him back onto the ground.

"Luke!" Guy's shout from behind him was followed by the sound of casting artes. Luke rubbed at his face, blood from his nose smearing the back of his hand, and kicked upward hard from his fallen position when the thing came close enough. He'd hoped to knock it over or at least off balance, but all he succeeded in doing was knocking the stand out from under it and dropping it onto his feet.

Fortunately, it was not as heavy as it would have appeared - the stone exterior had to be false, and the inside hollow, otherwise he legs would have been utterly crushed. Fortunately, that was the point when Jade and Anise unleashed their artes - the rush of Fifth and Sixth fonons made the hair on his neck stand up, but the only thing harmed was the doll, which cracked up one slide, one of its arms falling off with a chunk of the torso and sliding down over Luke's leg.

He sighed heavily, then pushed himself backwards to slide his legs out from under the thing. There was a nasty bruise already developing in his right leg. Fortunately, Tear was there immediately, a healing arte on her lips. It didn't pull all the pain, but at least he wouldn't have trouble walking. "That was foolish," she said, as he slowly stood up and wiped the blood from his nose on a handkerchief.

"Next time, no charging," Jade agreed as he stepped past, spear vanishing as he bent down to have a look at the guardian. Luke sighed, not wanting to admit that they had a point. He just wanted to get this over with.

"Something interesting there, Jade?" Guy asked, with what Luke could recognize as the most impatience he ever showed, even if none of the others could. With Jade bent to examine the ex-statue, there was no room for any of the rest of them to get through the door.

"This is a more recent model than I would have expected," was all Jade said as he stood up and stepped easily over the scraps as if they weren't even there. Luke decided to ignore the mysterious comment; it was clear that whatever was going through Jade's head wasn't something the man was going to share, and Luke had enough anxieties without adding that one.

He did kick the doll as he went past, though, under cover of clearing the path a bit more for Ion and Tear. Stupid thing.

* * *

As it turned out, Choral Castle was haunted, at least for some value of it, and chasing down half-physical ghosts for fonic keys was at least a way to get his mind off things as they progressed deeper into the castle. The whole time, there was no obvious sign of the God-Generals.

They were descending stone stairs when Luke heard it. The quiet, easily missed sound of water, flowing into the depths of the basement through sea caves leading to the outside. He froze on the steps, shivering, before forcing himself forward. It was just a basement. Just a basement, and he wasn't a child anymore. He could get out, if he had to, and he wasn't alone. Guy wouldn't let anything happen to him.

His resolve lasted until the stairs turned a sharp corner, and brought the machine into view. Luke had never seen it from this angle - had never seen it from any angle beyond being the subject of its use - but he recognized it instantly as though he had seen it from every possible angle. He stumbled immediately, only avoiding falling down the stairs because his head went into the wall instead, smacking his skull hard enough that he would have been dizzy anyway. It didn't help to make the things that began happening around him to make sense. After all, why else would there be a man in a flying armchair just beyond the reach of the stairway?

The man's voice, loud and high-pitched, only added to the way the world swirled around Luke - about all he could make of the conversation was that it wasn't directed at him, at least from the way Jade shot banter back off the staircase. Vaguely he was aware of hands on his shoulders - Guy's, maybe - trying to tug him back up to a standing position, but the world continued to wobble, and every time Luke lifted his head, the machine was there, staring at him, watching him. It even still glowed with the faint green hum of activity, as though seven years hadn't passed at all.

The burst of an arte, aimed at the floating noisemaker when Jade grew tired of him, almost brought Luke back to himself. He looked up and around, for a moment - it was Guy shaking his shoulders, the only one without artes that could be used at range, for the others were engaged in battle with some mechanical contraption that made too much noise and not enough sense.

A gunshot, better to be called a cannon for its size, fired and sprayed scraps of stone down across their heads. The sound was enough to make Luke respond, though not with any sense - he wrapped his hands over his aching head and whined wordlessly. "Retreat!" he heard Jade snap, distantly, the first word that had made any sense in some time. Guy tried again to pull on Luke's shoulder, to no avail.

A black shape dropped down from the stairway above, small and slight, with a kick that forced Guy back away from Luke. There was shouting as the rest of the group was forced back away from Luke - when he realized it, it drove him to action, forcing him to stand up, sword in his hand as he charged at the figure between him and the others. They couldn't be separated - he couldn't be separated from them...

With an expression that might have been pity somewhere behind the mask, Sync sidestepped gracefully and flung a kick at the back of Luke's neck. It landed soundly, and he knew no more.

* * *

"Be careful with him, I don't want the concussion screwing up the data."

"He'll be fine. They've got a healer with them, and Van will show up any moment."

The words were fuzzy; though Luke understood them individually, they didn't seem to attach to anything in the world. The voices were both almost-familiar, but neither attached to anyone in his memory, which didn't help.

"Suit yourself. I doubt Ember would forgive even you if something happened to him." There was a strange noise, somewhere below him - it made Luke aware of which direction below even was. He was stretched out on his back on something hard.

"Keep your nose out of it. We know all you want is the data." The second voice sounded annoyed. The first one laughed in response, almost a giggle.

"You know me too well! To think, after so long looking for a way to create perfect isofons, there was one sitting under my nose all this time..."

The platform beneath Luke started to hum. A light began to glow somewhere on the other side of his eyelids - when Luke slowly cracked his eyes open, it was green. Something about it filled him with fear.

"He's waking up. Make it quick." That voice was nearby, practically within Luke's reach if he could make his body cooperate.

"Don't rush me," the voice below snapped. The humming beneath Luke seemed to move into his body, slowly changing vibration until it was almost a part of him. It was strangely warm, like a distant sun and moon were both shining on him. "There. It's done. I'll be taking the data now."

"Whatever. Let's just get out of here." The warmth faded, triggering something deep in Luke's memory. He didn't have his thoughts together to put words to it, but it sent his heart racing again.

"Oh no you don't!" A new voice, one Luke immediately recognized - Guy! Guy had come for him! He tried to move, but all he could do was turn his head, seeing a slice of Guy charging at a small figure on the other side of the green light. That figure was familiar, too, he could almost put a name to it...

A male voice, deep, chanting an arte - Master Van! The healing arte fused fonons into Luke's skull, clearing his thoughts significantly as Van turned his attention to the small God-General held at bay by Guy's sword. "Sync! What is the meaning of this?"

Sync only answered with a hmph. "Time for me to get out of here." He leapt away, out of Luke's vision, and there was the sound of rapid footsteps on the stone below. Guy moved as though to pursue, but a hand fell on his shoulder, Van stopping the blond before he went more than a step or two.

"Admirable, but you won't catch up to Sync in a chase." Van turned from Guy to Luke, kneeling a bit so that his face was visible. "Are you alright, Luke?"

All Luke could do - literally - was nod slightly. Van smiled - Luke saw, behind the man, Jade pass by to the stairs on the far side of the machine. "We'll have you out of there in a moment," Van said, and Luke exhaled gratefully. They had come for him. He was safe.

Sure enough, a moment later the light dimmed, and Luke was able to sit up, his head still aching. "What happened?" he asked, as Tear, Anise, and Ion gathered around the machine as well. Only Jade remained where he was, looking at the machinery below.

"You freaked out!" Anise said, a little too loudly for Luke's comfort. "Then you tripped and hit your head, and then Dist showed up, lording it over us that we couldn't fight him from the stairs, ugh, and then Sync dropped out of nowhere and they captured you!" She had her fists balled up and seemed to shake from anger alone. "Ugh! I thought they were after Ion!"

It made sense with the things Luke could hazily remember, at least. He moved to slide off the platform he was on - and promptly almost fell again, realizing where he had been. On that machine again, just like before...

It was Van who gave him a hand to help steady himself, and Luke used it as a reminder - he hadn't been abandoned. People had come for him, this time, long before anything horrific happened. "They said from the beginning that both were targets," he said mildly. "Coming here was foolish, Luke."

"I know," he said. "I know, but I couldn't just..." His coming seemed especially foolish, now. He stepped away from Van, now that he had his balance back.

Support came from an unexpected corner. "You can't expect him to simply abandon his people," Tear said, from behind Ion. "Luke came in here even though he was terrified. I thought it was very admirable." Luke found himself flushing slightly. He thought he had been at least a little better at disguising his fear.

"Admirable and foolish are not mutually exclusive," Van said with a sigh. "Regardless, Arietta is still somewhere further ahead. The rest of you should return to Kaitzur and allow me to deal with her." Luke had no objection to that, so he just nodded.

"Please don't hurt her too badly," Ion said. "I don't know why she's done this, but she should stand trial in Daath for it, rather than simply being punished." He sounded really concerned about her, which Luke found irritated him a bit. Arietta had done nothing but cause problems. A glance at Anise showed that she predictably had a similar opinion of the matter, though she was clearly not going to say anything against Ion.

"I'll do my best, Fon Master," Van said respectfully before he turned to go, down the stairs and out the path that Sync must have taken. Luke watched him go, before flicking his attention to Jade, who was still bent over the controls. Indeed, the whole group seemed to have turned their attention to the colonel.

"Find something interesting down there, Jade?" Guy called out, which at least finally made the man look up. For a brief moment, Luke thought he could almost see something of what the man was thinking, before the typical smile slid back into place.

"Just a fon disc. The rest of the data's been erased, it seems." Jade lifted the disk in question before coming up the stairs. Luke frowned. The person taking the data - who must have been Dist the Reaper, the last God-General they hadn't encountered - hadn't said anything about erasing it that Luke could remember. And Jade had certainly been down there long enough...

Ugh. Well, if Jade was going to erase whatever data they had taken from him, Luke wouldn't complain. Guy took the disc delicately from Jade and put it safely away.

"There might be an analyzer in Kaitzur," Tear said.

"If not, I'm certain Astor in Chesedonia has one we can use," Ion provided. "We'll have to stay there overnight anyway to catch the ship to Baticul."

"Speaking of staying overnight," Anise interrupted, "are you guys planning to stay here all night? It'll be dark by the time we get back to the port if we don't leave soon!"

Luke shuddered immediately. He definitely had no fondness for the idea of staying the night at Choral Castle. In fact, he thoroughly intended to never come back here again, and to sell the place off to the highest bidder as soon as he inherited it. "She's right," he said. "Master Van can take care of himself. Let's go."

He didn't wait up for the others before turning for the stairs out. Only Jade had the poor taste to comment on it - "Charging off again, I see."

Luke resolutely ignored him.

* * *

Luke was in a much better mood throughout the return trip - his spirits lifted practically as soon as they were beyond the castle gates, really. He stuck close to Guy in particular, grateful for how willing Guy had been to rush after Sync for his sake. They arrived back at the port about half an hour before nightfall, which left Luke just enough time to frantically scrub the road dust off himself in order to be presentable for dinner with Count Almandine, who was in command of the area.

Ion, Anise, and Jade also attended, the latter two giving the distinct impression that they were guarding the former even though only one of them was required to. Luke formally introduced Jade - ignoring the Count's surprise at the colonel's infamy - and Ion before requesting a carrier pigeon. After being assured one would be found for him after dinner, they ate a somewhat stiff meal. Luke was surprised at how easy it was to put on his court face and fake his way through pleasantries, after the day he'd had. It helped that Anise made faces at almost everything - the Count, the guards, the food, the pigeon in its cage brought between the main course and dessert - when she thought no one would see.

Luke, for his part, scribbled a message to his parents and Natalia while the meal was winding down, finding that he couldn't tell them anything much of what had happened. It was all still too much to put to paper. Instead, he just gave them the best warning he could about the political maelstrom that was due to erupt as soon as he returned to court, their expected arrival date, and his love, as much as he could fit into the tiny strip of paper destined for the bird's leg.

Once the pigeon was gone and they had extracted themselves from the house - Jade after several shots of brandy that didn't seem to affect him in the slightest, Anise after only a single glass of fizzy juice that seemed to affect her far too much - Luke practically collapsed into bed, staying awake only long enough to hear from Guy that Van had indeed returned and was keeping Arietta under personal guard.

He didn't sleep well that night, but he had hardly expected to sleep at all. The feeling of being bound down in that machine haunted his senses and kept him from lying still for long enough to sleep for much of the night, and when he did finally pass out, far enough past midnight that it was closer to dawn, he woke up from a familiar nightmare. Knowing it was pointless to try and sleep any more after that, he rose in the dim light and went down to the streets to watch the sun rise over the distant mountains.

Amazingly, he wasn't the only one there. Ion was seated on a small bench, which worried Luke at first until he glanced around and realized just how many of the Kimlascan guard were standing nearby. Without Arietta's monsters, the God-Generals wouldn't try to snatch up the Fon Master here. With a relieved sigh, Luke went and sat next to the boy, who looked up at him with a smile.

"Good morning, Luke," he said cheerfully. "I suppose it's not surprising that you couldn't sleep, is it?"

"I slept a little," Luke said, a bit defensively, before relaxing. It wasn't Ion's fault. He'd pleaded with Luke to go, sure, but Luke had ultimately made the decision on his own.

"I'm sorry," Ion said. "I hadn't realized it would affect you so strongly. If I had known, I wouldn't have asked you to go." The Fon Master folded his hands in his lap.

"It's okay," Luke said, meaning it. He looked out at where the pinks were starting to develop against the horizon, the sun still hidden in the peaks. "You didn't leave me. That means a lot."

It meant everything, but that wasn't something Luke was comfortable saying out loud. Even after travelling together, they were still strangers, really, though Luke liked a great deal of what he had seen of Ion and was glad that the Fon Master for the foreseeable future was someone he could work with so easily. When it came to politics, he knew it was more than worth it to make allies, but at least Ion wasn't someone Luke had to force himself to put up with like so many of the nobility.

"I'm glad," Ion said, and when Luke glanced in his direction he found that the Fon Master too had turned his face towards the rising sun. "Even if I can't do very much by myself, I'm glad I was able to do that for you."

"No one can do much by themselves," Luke pointed out, trying to dispel some of the melancholy that seemed to hang around that statement. "You're doing as much as or more than the rest of us to end this war. That's what important - that you try as much as you can within your own ability."

"Thank you," Ion said, more quietly. "I feel guilty sometimes, making all of you protect me - "

"Well, don't," Luke said. "We all need protecting sometimes." He shut his mouth at that point, feeling like he had said too much, and turned his attention back to where the reddish sun was just starting to peek over the mountain.

Ion didn't say anything more, but when Luke glanced at him again, he was smiling, not the same smile that he wore acting at the Fon Master, but one that seemed to be more for himself. Neither said anything until the sun was well above the horizon and Anise sprinted down across the street to them, already lecturing Ion about leaving without her before she had even come to a stop. By then, Ion's smile was back to normal, and the quiet of the docks was gone as the rescued engineer and his crew got to work repairing the ferry.

Luke stood up, and looked at the ship which would hopefully be underway sometime late in the morning. He'd be home soon. That was what mattered.


	8. Chapter 8

"Did you have to leave me behind, mieu?" the cheagle said as Luke came back into the inn to pack up the few belongings he had collected over the course of their trip. Luke sighed and reached out to scratch Mieu's head between the ears.

"Sorry. It was kind of a long day yesterday. You should be glad you slept through most of it," he said, using his other hand to stuff some dried grass into his pack. The ferry had food for humans, but probably not for cheagles, and Luke was concerned that too much fruit would make Mieu too fat to move. Already he seemed to have gained a bit of fluff.

"Miiiiiieu," the cheagle whined, leaning a bit into the scratch. "Just don't leave me behind, okay?"

"I won't," Luke reassured him, reaching a hand below Mieu's belly to gently lift the cheagle to a travelling perch on his shoulder. That made everything he had. "But if we don't get going soon, the boat will leave us behind."

Mieu squeaked unhappily at the idea and held on tightly while Luke rushed down the stairs. The rest of the group slowly gathered up at the front of the inn, save Van who already had Arietta secure on the ship and had insisted on taking the first shift of guard duty himself.

Luke couldn't help but fidget the whole time he was waiting. At least no one commented on his impatience, probably (rightly) figuring that it would just be annoying. Though he wouldn't put it past Jade to comment for exactly that reason, come to think. They made hasty apologies to Count Almandine for leaving so abruptly and boarded the ship. Only at that point did Luke feel like the thread keeping him tense had been cut.

At last, he was truly on the way home.

* * *

The ocean waves got boring pretty quickly after they left the port, but Luke found himself staying on deck anyway, his arms propped up on the railing at the front of the ship. Mieu was asleep on his pack, lulled by the slow motion of the ship, and truthfully it made Luke a bit sleepy as well.

_Awaken... Hurry... Heed my voice..._

If it weren't for the headache, Luke would have thought he'd started falling asleep, and the words were a part of a dream. He'd never heard them that clearly before, and the headache was a little less, too. He turned and slid down with his back against the railing, one hand pressed to his forehead, but it passed quickly enough.

Not so quickly that he wasn't noticed, though. "Luke! Are you alright?" Tear's voice echoed across the deck as she sprinted towards him - Luke had to admit, she moved more quickly in her heels than he would have expected, given the way the floor was moving.

"I'm fine," he said, waving her off. "Just a headache."

"Are you certain?" she asked, kneeling down next to him. Luke tolerated her putting a hand to his forehead to check for a fever before gently pushing her hand back.

"Yes," he said stubbornly. The pain had mostly cleared. "They never last very long."

"This has happened before?" Her concern was apparently genuine, which made Luke a little uncomfortable. He'd been okay with Tear for most of their journey, but seeing the way she interacted with Van... It bothered him. There was no way he could trust her intentions entirely, when the tensions still existed so sharply between her and his mentor. "Shouldn't you see a doctor?"

"I'm afraid that doctors haven't yet been able to do anything for Luke's headaches," said a deep voice from behind her. Tear immediately put her hands to the knives still strapped to her legs. Luke, in contrast, barely reacted, aside from giving Van a small smile.

"It's true," Luke said, sitting up a little straighter. "It's been ongoing for years, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with me."

"Have you been having much trouble with them recently?" Van asked, ignoring the way Tear looked at him as she resecured the knife she had drawn.

Luke shook his head. "That's the first time I've had once since the manor."

"Good. It wouldn't do to have you passing out on the roadside."

Tear's attention flicked back to Luke, her expression concerned again. "They cause you to pass out?"

"Only once in a while," Luke said grumpily, growing more uncomfortable with this line of questioning by the moment. "One in eight or ten, at most."

Tear didn't look very comforted by this, and instead - with barely restrained aggression in her voice - turned her attention to her brother. "Weren't you keeping Arietta in her cell?"

"I felt it safe to leave it in the hands of the guard for a short break," Van answered easily. "I wanted to check on Luke, and perhaps get something to eat."

"I see..." Tear's voice trailed off, and she abruptly stood, brushing off her skirts. "Then if that's all, I'll leave you two to your discussion."

"Hey, wait, Tear - " Luke's words were too slow, and she was already walking away across the deck, either not hearing him or choosing to ignore it. Luke sighed and leaned back against the deck wall. "So much for that."

"Don't concern yourself with our family troubles, Luke," Van said gently, also watching his sister's retreat until she vanished around the corner. "I'm afraid it's a schism only time will heal."

"Is it related to the situation in the Order?" Luke asked, unable to push down his curiosity entirely, even if it might normally seem a little rude. Van had never talked much about himself, come to think; Luke hadn't even known he'd had any family at all. The man seemed to have appeared out of the ground somehow, without mention of parents or other relatives even reaching the most gossip-hungry of Kimlasca's court.

"Somewhat," Van said. "But it's more complex than simply Tear being under the Grand Maestro's command, I'm afraid. But since she won't allow me to explain the misunderstanding, I have no choice but to wait for things to play out."

Luke nodded, not pushing for any further details. He remembered Tear's words during the confrontation at the manor - _Prepare to die, traitor!_ \- but chose to neglect the fact that those words indicated a bit more than a simple misunderstanding. If Van thought it was better to wait, he surely knew his sister better than Luke did. "I hope things play out well," he said instead.

"As do I. Come," Van said, standing up. "We can continue our discussion in the dining hall."

Luke went to rise himself, but as he stood, he immediately had to grasp hold of the railing again, as another headache assaulted him._ I have reached you,_ said the voice, still too clear to be one of his normal headaches. _Show me your power..._

What power? Even as his body began to move on its own, taking a step back from the railing and raising its arms, Luke became impossibly aware of the Seventh Fonons around him. They began to gather to his raised hands.

"Luke! What are you doing?" Van, out of his line of sight now, demanded. Luke did see Mieu, who jerked awake at the harsh voice and dove deep into the pack with a fearful squeak.

"It's not me!" Luke managed to force through his uncooperative mouth. The fonons continued to gather at his hands, now humming with a golden glow that was slowly working its way up his arms. It shifted colors, a hazy rainbow, until it was purple at his elbows.

_The same power as mine..._

The light drifted from his hands, moving slowly outwards, the fonons all vibrating in on a single point. Luke could feel it, resonating with every fiber in his body, but he remained trapped by the power of whatever was controlling him. He started to panic, especially as the centerpoint of the gathered fonons moved into the railing, completely annihilating a half-circle about the size of his fist. "Make it stop!" Luke cried, helpless to do anything but watch the progress of the fonons through the railing.

Van's hands came to rest on his shoulders. "Luke. Calm down. Take a deep breath."

Luke tried, focusing on his breathing and the comforting touch. He was able to shut his eyes after a pair of shaky breaths, and that helped, though he could still feel the fonons dissolving the railing and moving out over the water beyond.

"That's it. Focus on the tips of your fingers..." Van's voice was helpfully soothing. The ache in Luke's skull began to abate. "Relax. Listen to my voice..."

Luke did his best, and just as he felt control of his body return to him, his consciousness slid away. For a moment, there was nothing in the world but the vibrating fonons, in the air, in him, in everything stretched across the horizon. The beat of his heart was the same as that in the core of the planet.

The fonons around his hands dissolved away into nothing, and Luke found himself blinking in the bright sunlight again, Van's hands still on his shoulders and supporting half of his weight or more.

"Are you alright, Luke?" Luke nodded and pulled his weight off Van's support. He leaned forward instead, carefully putting his hands on the railing again, on either side of the carved half-circle. Up close, it was a perfect, seamless cut, as though the part of the railing inside it had simply ceased to exist. Luke shivered.

"What was that?"

"I would presume it to be a hyperresonance," Van said, a little too mildly. It sounded like the presumption was only for Luke's benefit, that Van actually knew exactly what he was talking about. "More complete than the one that caused your transportation from the manor."

"I thought you needed two Seventh Fonists to cause a hyperresonance?" Luke said, still staring down at the gap in the railing.

"Normally, that's the case, but you are different. Your ability to cause a hyperresonance on your own is the reason you weren't allowed to train in healer's artes alongside Princess Natalia."

Van's words made sense - Luke knew it was because of something special about his ability with the Seventh Fonon that he hadn't been allowed to learn. If it was because his family was afraid of having something like_ this_ happen... Luke felt suddenly ashamed of his attempts to learn anyway. He had been putting everyone around him at risk, and he hadn't even known it.

"It is also, I suspect, the reason you were kidnapped as a child." At that, Luke's head jerked up, twisting over his shoulder so that he could see Van's expression. It was solemn, almost sad. "As I'm sure you can imagine, it would make for a potent weapon of war. Hyperresonance between two Seventh Fonists is too hard to predict, much less control, but yours..."

Luke looked at the railing and nodded, shuddering again. That much power to destroy... In a way he was glad that it was in his hands and no one else's, because Luke didn't think he could trust anyone else with that kind of power. At the same time, it terrified him.

"I wish that someone had told me," he said quietly, stepping away from the railing and kneeling down next to his pack. He reached into it until he felt Mieu's ears, and began scratching the cheagle gently, as much to comfort himself as the small monster.

"Your family believed that ignorance of your power was your best protection," Van said. "However, that is clearly no longer the case."

"Mmm," Luke agreed. "Can I learn to control it?" No amount of petting, it seemed, would coerce Mieu back out of the pack, so Luke removed his hand and let the flap fall closed.

"Most likely, given the time," Van answered, "But I don't think it would be wise to give it your exclusive focus for the time being. Perhaps when things have settled down a bit, I'll be able to help you learn to use it."

"I would be grateful," Luke said. He reached down and lifted his pack over his shoulder, cheagle still tucked inside. "Let's go to the dining hall; I think I'm starting to get seasick."

Van was polite enough to not call Luke out on the polite bluff, instead just smiling slightly and inclining his head as the two headed for the inside of the ship.

* * *

The climate when they stepped off the ship, two days later, wasn't too much different from when they got on it. But the arid heat was about the only thing Chesedonia had in common with Kaitzur; where the military outpost was barren and empty, Chesedonia was loud and lively, filled with colorful market stalls and equally colorful people. Though - Luke noticed as they departed the ship - the Malkuth side of the city was a bit empty, no doubt due to the broken bridge that formed the usual overland trade route.

Van had taken Arietta immediately to the late-evening ship for Daath, the girl asleep in his arms under the spell of the fonic hymn. The rest of them would have to wait for the late-morning ferry to Baticul the next day, and so that left them the afternoon to explore the city while Jade and Ion arranged to meet Astor, the city's merchant ruler, for an evening meal regarding the data they had taken from Choral Castle.

If the data wasn't probably about him, Luke would have been tempted to skip out. He wanted nothing more to do with it than he absolutely had to.

Instead, he headed out into the city, looking for something to bring back for Natalia. Guy and Tear followed after him; he was used to Guy's company for this kind of thing in Baticul, though, and Tear was reserved as usual, so Luke wasn't especially bothered by them. The three of them were clustered around a jewelry stall, Luke and Guy debating on if a stone was actually a ruby (as the stall owner claimed) or a garnet.

"Okay, fine, third opinion," Luke said, gently lifting the pendant from the table and presenting it to Tear. "Ruby or garnet?"

She blinked at him in confusion. "I don't know," she said quietly. "I don't have a lot of experience with gemstones. It's beautiful either way, though, isn't it?" Her eyes didn't leave the teardrop gem hanging at the bottom, beneath the sculpted silver vine holding it to the chain.

Luke sighed and set it back down. "It has to be a garnet, Guy. A ruby of that size and quality would have set someone bragging."

"Whatever you say, Luke," Guy answered with a shrug. "Natalia doesn't look much good in red anyway."

That, unfortunately, was true enough. Luke let the stall keeper put the pendant back under the glass (where Tear still watched it for a moment before looking away from the finer gems). "Well, the only option here is that peridot choker..."

"It matches her eyes," Guy pointed out.

"Let's look around a bit more," Luke said. He reached into the wallet at his waist and flipped the stall owner a coin for the trouble before turning away. Guy would follow, of course, and if Tear wanted to stay and look at jewelry for a while longer, that was totally fine. Luke found it a little hard to believe that she didn't know much about gemstones, based on the pendant she'd used to pay their way before. She might not have had formal knowledge, but she had a good eye.

A woman in a cloak, looking over her shoulder at someone down the road, bumped into Luke's side as he exited the immediate area of the stall. She caught herself on his shoulder as she tripped. "Oh, excuse me!" she said, somehow putting a flirtation into the words.

As she moved away from him, her cloak shifted just enough for Luke to see the revealing outfit she had on underneath it, a nearly circus level of bright pink that matched her short hair. Luke resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He wouldn't blame the woman for trying to make a living however she could - and she certainly had the figure for it - but the only worse target on this street that she could have picked was Guy.

"Don't worry about it," Luke said, gently pushing her hand off his shoulder, frantically trying to figure out how he could indicate his disinterest without giving the streetwife away.

"Are you sure? You don't look like you're from around here," she said, with a far-too-practiced smile. "I could give you a tour of the city, if you want..."

A tour of the city, right. _An excellent view of the scenery between her legs,_ Luke couldn't help but think as he stepped away. "I'm sure we'll be fine," he said, pointedly looking at Guy to include him in the statement. Tear was still too far back, watching the three of them from just on the edge of the jewelry stall.

The woman glanced back and forth between them, and her smile slipped just a hair. "Oh, I see," she said, not quite disappointed. "My mistake."

Well, that wasn't the impression Luke had intended to give her, but it would do. "Have a good evening," Luke said politely, and she nodded, turning to go.

"Wait!" Tear's voice echoed across the street, stopping the woman in her tracks. Or maybe that was the knife, flung through the crowd with enough accuracy and speed that Luke didn't see it until it was planted in front of the streetwife's foot. "Return what you stole," Tear continued angrily, coming up next to Luke.

Luke looked down at his belt - sure enough, the pouch he'd stored a few coins in was gone. The woman had no doubt watched for when he'd flipped a coin to the jewelry merchant... He was a little angry, true, but mostly, Luke found himself respecting the woman's skill at deception.

"Hmph. I see you're not all chumps," she said, lifting the wallet and jangling it. "I'm afraid I'll still be taking this, however - York! Urushi!"

From seemingly nowhere in the crowd, two men appeared at her sides, one squat, the other gangly. Both wore distinctive hats and clothing at least somewhat less revealing than their companion's. The woman tossed the wallet to the gangly one.

"You're the chumps here," Luke said, unable to keep the smirk off his face as the man looked into the wallet and discovered its contents - nothing more than a five-gald piece, and mostly pennies and other metal odds-and-ends that sounded like coins when shaken. "That's a decoy."

Even Tear looked at him with some surprise at that - only Guy knew about Luke's usual habit for such busy shopping centers. The taller man dumped the few coins into his hand and flung the rest back in their direction. "You've got some guts making enemies of the Dark Wings," he said. "You haven't seen the last of us!"

Luke caught the wallet as the three thieves scattered. Tear moved to go after one of them, but Luke put a hand on her shoulder.

"It's not worth it, Tear," Guy said. "They'd be lucky to get fifty gald out of that deal, and everyone on this street will recognize them now." Sure enough, something of a crowd had gathered at the commotion, and was even now dispersing and talking about what they'd seen.

"And that's assuming someone else here doesn't seek them out," Luke said. "It was the Dark Wings responsible for blowing up the bridge, remember?"

"That's right," Tear said, walking over to retrieve her knife from the sand. "I'm sure there are plenty of merchants still angry about that."

"Exactly," Luke said. "They're probably on their way out of town right now."

"Well, if their trick works as well on other people as it did on you," Guy added, "They probably have full pockets anyway." Luke frowned at him, but didn't argue the point. It was pretty rare for anyone to trick him - he tended to just be too suspicious of strangers for it to work.

"Come on," he said instead. "Let's just finish shopping so we can meet the others at Astor's manor." He chose to ignore the exasperated-but-amused looks Guy and Tear gave each other behind him as he walked off, too.


	9. Chapter 9

pushes update out the window after fighting with it for six months because of repetitive-to-game plot-establishing scenes

* * *

Astor's manor was rich in the way that only desert palaces could be - fountains and lush gardens wouldn't have drawn comment in Baticul, but in Chesedonia, the water involved in maintaining them was an extravagance only massive amounts of money could bring. Even given that most of them were still desert plants - little else could survive the heat - it was more greenery than the rest of the city combined. While the sun poured down the same way as in the rest of the city, the mere presence of water made it feel cooler, and of course it was genuinely cooler once the mist of the fountains blew into their faces.

Ion set the pace up the steps, being more affected by the heat than the rest of them due to his weak health. He was the one Astor would be willing to do a favor for on such short notice anyway, since Daath's support was the only reason Chesedonia hadn't been claimed by one country or the other in the last few centuries. Upon recognizing the Fon Master, servants ushered them inside, directly to Astor's opulent office. Astor himself was pale enough that it was clear he never left that office, with a large turban and a sharp mustache.

"Fon Master Ion!" he greeted enthusiastically, completely ignoring the rest of their group. Luke was content to let him, and seated himself on a plush couch beside Anise. "I wish that I had known you were coming - I would have prepared a grand welcome! A feast, and a party, and - "

"It's fine," Ion interrupted him gently. "We're trying to keep a low profile. I only came to ask a small favor."

"Name it," Astor said, his voice losing volume but none of its intensity. "I am always glad to be at your service, Fon Master."

"It's this fon disc," Guy said, pulling the item from where it had been carefully wrapped inside his jacket. "We want an analysis of the data, if you could."

"Of course!" Astor replied brightly, barely even turning to Guy before clapping his hands loudly to summon a servant, who carried the disc off to whatever corner of the manor held the machine to analyze it. It would be some hours before the analysis was complete, so Ion told him the address of the inn they were staying at so that the results and disc could be delivered in the morning. After that, amazingly, they escaped Astor's manor after only a single round of refreshments, odd-looking fruits that the others seemed to actually find refreshing but which Luke was all too happy to discreetly feed to Mieu.

They dispersed to their rooms after arriving at the inn, which left Luke alone with Guy - save Mieu, who curled up on a pillow to sleep off his meal. Luke stroked the sleeping cheagle's ears absently, watching the window but not really seeing it.

"Worried about what they're going to find on the disc?" Guy asked, sitting on the other bed across from Luke. Luke smiled weakly at him.

"A little," Luke said, because that was as close to putting a name to his worry as anything.

"Relax," Guy said. "It's not like we told them the disc had to do with you."

"Not worried about Astor and his servants," Luke corrected, mentally adding, or at least not much. "I'm worried about what kind of data they took from me in the first place. And why? What's so special about me?"

Well, he knew part of the answer to that, now, when he reflected on it for a moment. But Guy didn't know anything about the hyperresonance, and just gave Luke a concerned look.

"You're worried about the first time, too, aren't you?" he asked, and even though it was an incredibly neutral way of phrasing it, Luke still shivered.

"I was in the machine a lot longer, then," he said, trying to avoid gritting his teeth. He started to reflexively squeeze one of Mieu's ears, but the cheagle made a sleepy sound of protest that called Luke's attention to what he was doing. He folded his hands in his lap, instead. "And I still don't have any idea what it was for."

Guy nodded. "I guess anyone would be worried. Do you feel any different?"

Luke thought about it, then shook his head. "Not really. A little like my ears got unclogged, but that's it." That wasn't quite the right way of describing the sensation, but it was as close as he could come.

"Huh. Well, if you were going to get sick or something, it probably would have happened by now," Guy pointed out. He pulled his shoes off and climbed all the way into his bed. "I'm going to get some sleep. Don't stay up all night stewing about it, okay?"

"I'm not going to stew," Luke muttered, but Guy just rolled over and faked being asleep, no doubt hiding a smile. Luke smiled back at the blond's shoulders, before reaching up and turning out the light.

* * *

The fon disc was returned the next morning, along with the analysis in a neatly tied bundle of papers. There wasn't time to give it much more than a passing glance - most of it was a wall of numbers that didn't have any meaning to Luke. He stuffed the last bite of his breakfast muffin into his mouth instead and followed the others down towards the port.

Luke and Guy brought up the rear, Luke with Mieu attached to his shoulder and Guy with the bundle of papers under his arm. It was a little strange for Luke to walk through the city and not be recognized everywhere; the streets were much busier than Baticul's would be at this hour, as people tried to take care of their business before the worst of the heat set in.

It was only the parting of the crowd that gave Luke enough warning to dodge the streak of a person who came flying out of it. At first, all he saw was the flurry of black coat, and it took him a too long moment to realize that the attacker was standing on their hands and had kicked the papers out of Guy's grasp instead of using their fists. Only the glimpse of green hair and the size of the body allowed Luke to recognize Sync the Tempest.

Though, to be fair, I had a concussion last time, Luke thought. He wasn't particularly glad to see that his impression of Sync's speed was not the result of his head injury.

The disc and papers went flying in separate directions - the disc slid across the sand in a way that would certainly scratch the data irreparably, and the papers landed near Luke's feet. Sync made a grab for them, and Luke didn't think he would react quickly enough - but he didn't have to. A puff of fire shot past his ear at Sync's face, and Mieu's distraction forced the God General back long enough for Guy to sweep the papers into his arms.

"Hand those over!" Sync demanded, rushing at Guy. Though Sync wasn't holding a weapon, Luke saw a slash appear on the arm Guy was using to hold the papers. Whatever the arte was, Guy flinched and gripped his arm in pain with his free hand, but he kept a grip on the papers. Luke didn't bother drawing his sword, but aimed a punch at Sync to get him to back off a step.

"Get to the ship!" came Jade's voice from ahead of them, and if it sounded like an order, it at least galvanized Guy into motion, the blond standing straight and rushing forward. Luke tore after him, one hand on his shoulder to keep Mieu steady.

Luckily, it seemed that while Sync was fast at a sprint, he didn't have the ability to keep up an extended chase. By the time they arrived at the docks, even Luke was well ahead of him. The Kimlascan soldiers had somewhat wide eyes underneath their helmets as the group approached. "Shut the gates!" Luke shouted as they approached! "Don't let anyone onto the ship after us!"

The soldiers, to their credit, didn't hesitate when they got the order. The gates down to the docks slammed shut practically on Luke's heels, startling the few people who were already waiting to board. Jade and Anise were making short work of the ticket check ahead of him, so Luke barely had time to catch his breath before they were making their way onto the deck.

Once there, he sat against one of the low walls that served as railing. Anise and Ion dropped into place on either side of him, all three of them breathing hard. As soon as he felt like he could speak again, Luke lifted Mieu into his lap and started to aggressively scratch the cheagle's ears. "Good job. He would have gotten the papers if you hadn't been there."

"Mieu..." The cheagle's whine was mostly one of pleasure, though whether it was at the praise or the scratching was hard to tell. "Thank you, Master."

"They must have wanted the data from that disc really badly," Tear observed, coming to stand near them.

"Well, it's the only copy now," Guy said, adjusting the papers in his grip. "Getting thrown into the sand like that? Fon discs are delicate instruments - " Luke braced himself for one of Guy's fontech lectures. " - there's no way there's anything readable on there now."

"They may have wanted to deny us the data as much as they wanted it for themselves," Ion pointed out. Jade, the last to make his way over from the gangplank, nodded.

"That's certainly possible. Guy, if you would?" Jade extended a hand, and Guy passed over the documents without question. The colonel opened the cover and started flipping through the pages rapidly. "Hmm..."

"What is it?" Anise asked, just a hair before Luke himself got the question out. He frowned at her. She stuck her tongue out at him over Ion's shoulder.

"It seems to be isofon research." Adjusting his glasses, Jade flipped a few more pages. "Lorelei's fonon frequency comes up frequently... Luke, do you know your frequency?"

Luke stopped stroking Mieu's ears, blinking. "No. Why would I?"

Jade shrugged with the arm that wasn't supporting the papers. "Just an idle thought, nothing more."

Luke frowned. Something about Jade's reaction seemed off, but he wasn't able to put his finger on it before Anise spoke up. "Doesn't that 'fomicry' technology have the power to create isofons?"

"No," Jade said swiftly. "Replicas created with fomicry have their own frequencies; you can't create an isofon that way."

"Huh," Guy said. "Sounds like you've kept up with the research, Jade."

"You could say that." With that, the colonel folded the notes closed and tucked them under his arm. "I think that's all I'm going to get from a quick skim, but I'll keep them overnight and let you know what I find."

"Sure, it sounds like you understand more than the rest of us anyway," Guy agreed. A few nods passed around the group as they split up and started heading for the ferry cabins.

Luke lifted Mieu to his shoulder and stood, but not before noticing that Ion hadn't even made a move to get up. He was staring after Jade with a funny expression on his face. Luke cleared his throat and offered a hand to help the Fon Master up. "You okay?"

"Oh!" Ion looked up at him with his usual smile, seemingly pulled out of his reverie. He took Luke's hand and stood. "Yes, I'm sorry. Let's go inside, before Anise gets worried."

"Wouldn't want that to happen," Luke muttered, though mostly in good humour, before heading into the cabins himself.

* * *

Baticul came into sight the next morning, and once it did, it would have taken the entire army to pry Luke away from the deck, even with the ocean breeze chilly enough that Mieu opted to retreat into one of Ion's wide sleeves. The city was a blurry, distant cone at first, but slowly took on more shape and color, with the outline of the castle at its peak, above colorful flags and the slow trundle of early-morning railcars.

It might have been the most wonderful sight Luke had ever seen, at least at that moment. It certainly ranked within the top five.

At the port, they were greeted by several officers of the military (including one General Cecille, who Luke had seen around the manor a few times paying visit to his father - he gave her a nod of recognition). All of them were quite surprised to hear Jade introduce himself, and Luke thought for a moment that someone was going to pull arms, having an officer of the Malkuth military in their midst. In spite of the offer to be escorted back to the manor, Luke insisted on accompanying the group up to the castle proper for a formal introduction to his uncle.

"This is so cool!" Anise exclaimed as the railcar carried them up from the port towards the city proper. "Look, Ion, you can see forever up here!"

"Don't lean out so far," Luke scolded her. "Not only will you fall out, but you'll upset the car and then the rest of us will, too." Children in Baticul learned that lesson young, but Anise was from Daath and had apparently never been to Kimlasca's capital before. At least Ion was being his reserved self and staying in his seat beside Tear on one of the railcar's benches.

"No way!" Anise said. "They wouldn't put royalty in something so unsafe, right?"

"The royalty knows how to act to avoid upending the car, Anise," Jade observed from the back, where the two guards Luke hadn't been able to dismiss stood, flanking the Colonel as though they expected him to whip out a weapon and assassinate Luke at any moment. (Luke was only mostly confident that they were wrong. He'd sat at the front of the car.) "And if you did so, it would be poor repayment, since I do believe we only narrowly avoided arrest back on the docks thanks to him."

Anise pouted, but did at least pull back from the railing, to Luke's relief, though she swung her feet beneath her seat with childish energy. "Stupid Mohs," she muttered, ignoring the look Tear shot her at the words. "This has gotta be his doing. He's always in and out of Baticul."

"I'm sure the Grand Maestro wouldn't jeopardize such an important effort for the peace," Tear said, in the controlledly even tone that Luke was starting to recognize as something that was actually a sign of annoyance.

"Even if the Score called for a war?" Guy asked, the tone of his voice slightly sour, in a way that probably no one but Luke knew him well enough to recognize. The words were enough to draw him stares from everyone save Jade, who was as unaffected as ever.

Tear, in particular, looked somewhat horrified at the idea. "The Grand Maestro would never - the Score is the path to peace and prosperity!" she protested.

"It's not uncommon for one nation to prosper after a war," Jade said casually. "At the expense of the loser."

"Prosperity for everyone," Tear added, shooting him a glare.

"Relax, Tear," Luke cut in. "I'm sure Guy's just worried about how much trouble we've already run into, right?" This last was with a slight glance at Guy, one of the sort that meant don't contradict me.

"Yeah," Guy agreed, wisely. "Just... Tensions are already high, you know? And we've had enough delays."

Tear seemed to accept that, at least for now, though after that conversation, no one seemed to want to talk further. Luke leaned back against the guardrail to watch Guy for a moment. Even though he had gone back to the smiling, fade-into-the-background expression he put on in front of the rest of the royal family, there was something about those words that nagged at Luke.

The Score predicted everything - of course that would include wars. But Luke had always thought that the Order would use that to minimize the damage, the way Ion was trying to do. The idea that someone would look to cause a war because the Score said so...

It made him more than uncomfortable. Putting his eyes back on the city and his thoughts back on more pleasant things, Luke scratched at Mieu's ears while they waited for the railcar to reach its destination.

The silence didn't last long, however, when Luke realized the railcar on the wiring opposite them - going the other direction, back down towards the port - was occupied only by three familiar, hatted figures. "Hey!" he shouted, catching the attention of the rest of the car. "What are theydoing here?!"

Across the gap, the three thieves heard his shout as well, all of them turning to look at Luke's car as the two passed each other. The woman waved cheerily at them. "Sorry, kids, we're busy! Play with you some other time!"

"Stick around and I'll show you playing!" Anise yelled across the gap, leaning entirely too far over the railing again. Luke made the executive decision to grab her collar and yank her back in.

"I don't think so," the short, fat man said, drumming his cane in his other hand in a distinctly threatening way.

"You're a little young for the kind of games Noir plays," the taller man agreed, with a lewd sparkle in his eye that made Luke nearly lose his grip on Anise. Thankfully, by this time, Tear had joined him in yanking her away, setting their car slightly swaying.

"See you some other time~!" the woman, Noir, called as the two cars moved out of each others' range. Luke waited a little longer before releasing Anise, who folded her arms in a pout.

"I'll show her who's too young to play," the girl muttered, to which Luke felt his ears go faintly red. Tear coughed politely.

"I don't think you should be worrying about that right now, Anise." If anything, Tear's words towards the other girl just increased the level of pout.

Ion reached out and patted her shoulder gently, which had no effect at all. "You'll understand someday, Anise."

Frankly, Luke thought Ion was entirely too young to understand it himself, but he supposed you had to allow the Fon Master a certain amount of leeway.

"Master Luke?" called one of the guards from the back. "If those people have troubled you, we can put out a warrant - "

"Don't bother," Luke said, shaking his head as he sat back in his seat. "They'll just disappear again, like they did in Chesedonia, I'm sure."

"They sure do move around quickly," Guy agreed. "Even if we assume they left Chesedonia that night, their transportation must be as fast as the ferry to have gotten here ahead of us."

Jade hummed agreement. "The Dark Wings have been causing problems off and on throughout northern Rugnica for years. They're quite good at slipping out of nets, as you saw when they destroyed the bridge to put a stop to the Tartarus." The last was directed at Luke and Tear.

Luke nodded. "Still, it seems suspicious that they would get here at the same time we did..."

"They're probably just looking for new targets, since they can't get back into Malkuth right now," Guy observed. "Don't worry so much, Luke."

"I'll try," he muttered, as the railcar rattled into the station.


End file.
